On Tuesday 4 October, European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici called for more social justice in Greece and, in particular, expressed his support for the creation of a new living wage in 2017.
The commissioner told a debate at the European Parliament on the third Greek bailout plan that the Greek government is preparing a growth strategy, with accompanying social measures. "We know about this. The programme provides for a guaranteed minimum living wage mechanism to be deployed next year. If this is carried out in the framework of the financial balances scheduled, I believe that we can all consider that social justice alongside investments and reform is good policy", he said.
Moscovici stresses that it is vital that the Greek government conclude the prior actions required before the Eurogroup meeting of Monday 10 October, so that the second sub-tranche of €2.8 billion can be paid to Athens (see EUROPE 11636).
Although the commissioner wanted the Greek dossier to be a success story, with a return to growth in 2017, some of the members of the European Parliament depicted a disastrous social situation in the country. Notis Marias (ECR, Greece) said that the successive action plans in Greece had done nothing but plunge the population further into poverty while creditors and banks have grown rich. Syriza member Nikolaos Chountis (GUE/NGL, Greece) spoke out against the privatisations underway with the sale of regional airports to the Germans, railways to the Italians and ports to the Chinese. Fabio de Masi (GUE/NGL, Germany) described it as pillage. Laura Agea (EFDD, Italy) said that it was criminal to wipe out the dignity of Greek citizens in the name of the integrity of the eurozone. A number of MEPs, such as Bernd Lucke (ECR) and Alexander Graf Lambsdorff (ALDE), both German, said that the single currency was unsuited to Greece and suggested that the country leave the eurozone to rebuild its competitiveness.
Calls for substantial debt relief. On the scale of the Greek debt, which stands at nearly 180% of national GDP, Moscovici went no further than to call for the Eurogroup to make good on its commitment to adopt short-term relief measures (see EUROPE 11557). "It is time for the European side to take its responsibilities, by specifying the short-term debt measures. This is highly anticipated in Greece and is perfectly legitimate once the work on the reforms is finished", he said. Dimitris Papadimoulis (GUE/NGL, Greece) retorted that it is not just short-term measures that need to be taken and criticised the attitude of the German government, which he feels is more interested in the German voting public that in the fate of the Greek population. Pervenche Beres (S&D, France) said that the Greek debt is unsustainable and that relief is urgently needed to make the target of a primary budgetary surplus (not including servicing of the debt) of 3.5% of GDP in 2018 credible.
In response to the "complete mess" that is the Greek dossier, as Jean Arthuis (ALDE, France) described it, a number of MEPs called for more political integration within the eurozone, with the creation of its own budget and increased democratic control. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)