Greek PM Says Single Focus on Pensions Could Worsen Crisis

The “blind insistence” on cutting Greek pensions will only worsen the country’s already dire financial crisis, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras wrote in a German newspaper commentary on Thursday.

In a guest column for Der Tagesspiegel newspaper in Berlin, Tsipras also rejected the “myth” that German taxpayers are paying Greek pensions and wages. He said Greeks, contrary to the widespread belief in Germany, work longer than Germans.

“The blind insistence of cuts (in pensions) in a country with a 25 percent unemployment rate and where half of all the young people are unemployed will only cause a further worsening of the already dramatic social situation,” Tsipras wrote.

He said that pensions are the only source of income for countless families in Greece. In Athens on Wednesday he also rejected pension cuts that creditors are seeking to unlock aid.

Tsipras also wrote that the state’s expenditures for pensions and social spending were cut by 50 percent between 2010 and 2014. “That makes further cutbacks in this sensitive area impossible.”

via Reuters

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza