Final word on 11.5 bln euros in savings ‘in August’
An announcement on some 11.5 billion euros in savings for 2013 and 2014 that Greece must identify to satisfy its international creditors will be made within the month of August, government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou told Skai television on Tuesday morning.
“We are following the only road that can keep Greece in Europe and we are trying to do this with the fewest possible sacrifices,» Kedikoglou said. He added that the 11.5 billion euros in budget savings were a «a tough ticket» but that they constituted «the only way for us to regain our credibility and avoid going back decades.»
The spokesman added that Athens should be prepared for swift developments from September onward. «Developments in the fall on the European level will be swift and we must be involved, at any cost,» he said.
He added that the meeting on Monday evening between coalition leaders did not result in a final decision on the budget savings for the next two years, noting that efforts were being made to ensure that the most vulnerable social groups are not burdened with more «horizontal cuts.»
On the issue of the ailing ATEBank — whose healthy assets were taken over by the country’s fourth-biggest lender Piraeus Bank — Kedikoglou countered opposition criticism by insisting that there had been no better proposal to save the struggling bank and that it would have closed in the absence of such an intervention.
