Greece: Syriza’s anti-austerity programme – at a glance.

Radical left party Syriza, which is currently leading in the polls, announced its new programme Friday. Here’s the main points:

• Cancel the ‘memorandum‘ between Greece and the EU-IMF and repudiate its ‘odious’ terms
• Ask for the renegotiation of the loan agreement
• Push for a new restructuring of the debt with the aim of reducing it
• Or a moratorium and suspension of interest payments ‘until the economy stabilizes and shows sign of recovery’
• Debt servicing must be linked to the Greek economy’s growth rate
• Immediately repeal a 22 percent reduction the minimum wage
• Extend unemployment benefit to two years from one year
• Repeal recent labour market reforms allowing employers impose individual contracts when collective contracts expire.
• Scrap all emergency taxes, starting with low income earners and those living close in poverty.
• Set public spending  at between 43 and 46 percent of GDP, rather than under 36 percent as agreed in the memorandum.
• Raise government revenues from 41 percent of GDP to the eurozone average of 45.
• Extra revenues to be raised from taxing wealth and high incomes
• Suspend cuts to social spending, pensions and public sector salaries
• Creation of a register for assets for Greeks living in the country and abroad with anyone submitting false details having their assets seized
• Change tax brackets to ease pressure on low incomes.
• Value Added Tax to be reduced, particularly on basic goods such as milk and bread, which would boost consumption
• Boost efforts to tackle tax evasion
• Seek agreement shipowners to end the 58 tax exemptions that apply to their sector
• Nationalization of all banks currently being recapitalized as part of the EU-IMF bailout.

Tag: draghi, eu, fmi, Grecia, mario monti, merkel elezioni politiche in grecia 2012, programma di syriza, syriza