Greece’s international lenders will start assessing its compliance to the agreement this week as the nation braced for more economic pain and its largest union called for a nationwide strike on Nov. 12.
The Greek parliament last week approved a first raft of reforms to the pension and tax systems, sought by lenders as a condition for up to 86 billion euros in aid. The retirement age will incrementally rise to 67, and there are increased penalties for early retirement and higher fines for tax evasion.
The mission chiefs of Greece’s international lenders will be visiting Athens for talks with authorities between Wednesday and Friday, EU Commission and Greek officials said.
With a first bundle of taxes passed, Athens must now prepare a new batch of reforms by increasing tax on farmers, a powerful lobby. Then there should be further pension reforms to ensure viability of the system until 2050, which will likely mean further pension cuts.
Greece’s private sector umbrella union GSEE called a 24-hour strike for Nov. 12 to protest reforms demanded by the country’s lenders under its third bailout.
“This tax blitz has smothered wage earners and just adds to the ‘blood tax’ paid through high unemployment … we cannot remain apathetic and hope to be saved by God,” GSEE chairman Yiannis Panagopoulos said.
It will be the union’s first strike since the left-wing government took power in January.
Farmers, who will see tax on profits increase in steps to up to 26 percent by the end of 2016 from a present 13 percent rate, said they were taking action.
PASEGES, an umbrella organisation representing agricultural cooperatives across Greece, said it would start mobilising its members on a local level and hold further consultations in December on broader action, it said in a news release.
“We cannot let them wring us dry,” it said.
Industrial action by farmers demanding compensation for low agricultural prices caused widespread disruption across Greece in 2009.
The inspection will focus on assessing economic reforms passed by parliament and the outlook for the first review, an EU Commission spokeswoman said.
“Greece now needs to agree with the institutions the second set of milestones,” said spokeswoman Annika Breidthardt.
A formal review, which had been due to start mid-October, was pushed back because of parliamentary elections in Greece on Sept. 20. It is unclear when the review will commence.
Athens wants to conclude the review and recapitalise its banks by the end of the year to start debt relief talks. Lenders in the country have been depleted by a capital flight of about 40 billion euros from December to July and a mountain of non-performing loans.
