NEWS

PASOK MP says he will vote against mid-term fiscal plan

Just days before a crucial vote in Parliament determines the fate of the government?s midterm fiscal plan, party lines are looking increasingly blurred. Speaking on Skai Television on Wednesday, PASOK MP Alexandros Athanasiadis said that he is not going to vote in favor of the new austerity measures.

Athanasiadis strongly opposes the Socialist party?s plan to sell part of the Public Power Corporation (PPC) and believes that a number of Greece?s state-owned public enterprises, known as DEKO, should not be privatized.

Losing Athanasiadis’s vote would mean that the government majority would be cut to four. So far, no other PASOK MPs have expressed any intention to oppose the scheme in next Tuesday’s vote.

Also speaking on Skai, New Democracy MP Kyriakos Mitsotakis noted that if the passing of the midterm fiscal plan depended on one vote, his own, he would vote in favor of the new austerity package. ?The government has a majority, however,? he said.

According to the Mitsotakis family scion, the dismissal of Giorgos Papaconstantinou from the Finance Ministry points to the government?s failure on the whole. As for the perpetual feuding between the two major parties, PASOK and New Democracy, Mitsotakis noted that the two agree on more than they disagree on.

Meanwhile, Deputy Interior Minister Paris Koukoulopoulos denied that before being given a Cabinet position in last week’s reshuffle he had said he would oppose the midterm fiscal plan. He told Skai TV on Wednesday: ?I have never stated that I will not vote in favor of the midterm fiscal plan. I?m a member of GENOP [PPC?s worker union] and my proposal would be for 17 percent of the company to be sold to a strategic investor.?

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