PM ready for personal flak
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis told a meeting of his party’s political council on Wednesday that he was prepared for an onslaught of personal attacks brought on by his effort to fight corruption. «We are under attack because we are putting our program into action. In the immediate future, these attacks will intensify and will target me as well. I will not back down. The government will not back down in the face of those who support favoritism, corruption and the lack of transparency,» Karamanlis told New Democracy officials. The prime minister added that one of the government’s next aims would be to reform rules governing public procurements. He also said that, despite recent revisions of Greece’s public accounts, he would not raise taxes or bring in measures to reduce wages. PASOK spokesman Nikos Athanassakis responded by claiming that, in its first eight months in power, the Karamanlis government had the worst record of any government in the post-dictatorship era.
