€2.5 billion will be distributed in the next 8 months for income support measures for citizens, announced among other things Kyriakos Pierrakakis, who also commented on the positive remarks he heard about Greece at the IMF summit, which he attended a few days ago.
The Finance Minister speaking on Tuesday morning (21/10) on SKAI said: “The positive remarks they told me at the IMF reflect the efforts of the Greek people. They tell us that Greece is a success story because they see that we emerged from 3 bailout programs, debt is falling, there is growth”. As he emphasized “money is coming into citizens’ pockets to the extent that the country can afford it. You know, in Greece we had many Harry Potters who didn’t prove to be such wizards. The recipe that works is hard work day-by-day, week-by-week”.
Pierrakakis: €2.5 billion to be distributed in next 8 months for income support
He added that: “On November 30th we start with rent rebates to 80% of tenants. At the end of November we will have €250 for 1.4 million pensioners. In total, €2.5 billion will be distributed in the next 8 months. From January 1st we have tax exemptions that they will see as salary increases in the public sector”, while he spoke of increases that “will be significant to give households breathing room. These are realistic and the maximum”.
“The country has international interest”
When asked, “What is the goal at the end of the 4-year term”, he said: “We will not pass the bill to the next generation and we certainly will not risk the country’s situation. It is very important for Greece to be considered a beacon of stability. Based on this it builds development to reach every household. We will achieve this through investments, increased exports”. He added that: “The country has international interest on terms it didn’t have in the past and we have a responsibility as a government to bring this as investments” in this context emphasizing that “we have shown that whenever there is room and development dividend it will return to society
the goal is for all policy measures like catching tax evasion to have a social dividend”.
Kyriakos Pierrakakis also announced the drafting of a new public property management code, while regarding overdue public debts he said that “we have created a technical team and are collecting data for invoices organization by organization and in the coming months it will be published explaining every delay”.
Regarding the European discussion about increasing tobacco taxes the minister mentioned that it must “be done realistically. We have found that sometimes you try to do something good by increasing a tax for something related to public health and you end up with smuggling. We said let’s not overdo it”. Finally, when asked about small packages from China he said that “we want there to be a tax. It will be implemented pan-European, we will have concluded by the end of the year”.