European Parliament Vice President Papadimoulis: Greece on the verge of a new loan

18:25 10/9/2014 - Πηγή: E-Typos

European parliament vice president and SYRIZA eurodeputy Dimitris Papadimoulis, in an interview with ANA-MPA on Wednesday, opined that "a new loan is being prepared in order

to cover the fiscal gap until 2016 and of course, a new memorandum that will be called differently."

"The only thing the government and Greece's lenders are interested in is to change package, not calling it a memorandum but with another word and to change the form of the troika. The supervision, however, will remain, possibly without IMF's participation," he noted.

Asked on when he believes the discussion, on a political level, on the sustainability of the Greek public debt will start, Papadimoulis noted: "The responsible Commissioner, Mr. Katainen, replying to my question on the issue, set the total compliance with the conditions of the memorandum as a necessary prerequisite to start the discussion in order for the possible measures for the Greek public debt relief to be examined. This constitutes another resounding refutation of the government's claims on the alleged end of the memorandum and another proof that the European Commission insists on the neoliberal Taliban's line".

Papadimoulis expressed the opinion that "(German Chancellor Angela) Merkel's dogma should be abandoned because not only it leads the Greek economy and society to a catastrophic course, but it has also led the eurozone on the verge of a new cycle of recession with very serious deflation risks."

Referring to ENFIA (Uniform Real Estate Ownership Tax) amendment tabled in parliament by the government, Papadimoulis noted: "We have a government that with ENFIA charges in 2014 four billion euros tax on real estate property, in a practically dead real estate market with devastated commercial values. This is double the tax compared to the average applied in the eurozone; a lot higher than the 2 percent of Greece's current GDP, when the average real estate tax in the Eurozone is below 1 percent of GDP. SYRIZA (main opposition) as government will cancel ENFIA and replace it with a European-model property tax with high tax free and gradual taxation in order for large property owners to pay more".

The Europarliament Vice President estimated that "SYRIZA's clear victory in the euroelections and the increasing SYRIZA lead in all the opinion polls offers with relative certainty the prospect of a great victory for SYRIZA in the imminent general elections...And this is something that not only the duo of (Prime Minister Antonis) Samaras - (Government Vice President Evangelos) Venizelos, the duo of failure, but also the international establishment do not want to happen".