PM drafting action plan for pending reforms
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has been working closely with the government’s general secretary Panayiotis Baltakos to draft a list of Greece’s pending commitments to the troika of international lenders as well as accompanying draft legislation that his administration hopes to submit to Parliament in the coming weeks, Kathimerini understands.
Samaras, who is due to return to the Maximos Mansion on Monday ahead of the scheduled reopening of Parliament on Wednesday, is reportedly keen to finalize the list of 12,500 civil servants who must join a so-called mobility scheme by the end of next month.
One of the premier’s first meetings on his return is likely to be with Administrative Reform Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who is overseeing the civil service overhaul.
According to sources, Samaras is not greatly concerned about the list of civil servants but authorities must come up with a second list, featuring the names of another 12,500 public workers, by the end of the year and there are fears that this might prove to be more difficult.
Another area in which the premier wants to see progress is in state privatizations, with the sell-off of the Athens and Thessaloniki water boards among the first in the list of planned tenders.
The government is reportedly keen to implement as many reforms as possible this month to avoid stoking public anger in September when anti-austerity protests generally accompany the prime minister’s traditional economic policy speech at the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair.
The main leftist opposition SYRIZA party is reportedly cooperating with labor unions with the aim of organizing a major protest in the northern port against the government’s ongoing austerity drive.
But Samaras also faces opposition from within the ranks of his own coalition as prominent lawmakers from both conservative New Democracy and socialist PASOK have expressed opposition to plans to lift a moratorium on the repossession of homes owned by Greeks struggling to meet their mortgage payments.
