Meeting between Samaras, Venizelos and Kouvelis

Venizelos' moves, which show him distancing himself from the Finance minister Yiannis Stournaras, and the way he handled the renegotiation issue at the Eurogoup are troubling Maximos Mansion.

A meeting of the three leaders and the Finance minister will take place this afternoon at 7, and will look into the current state of the Economy, the situation throughout Europe and the tactics that our country will follow.

However, government officials indicate that in the Eurogroup Stournaras moved along the lines he had agreed with the prime minister and that the issue of extending the fiscal adjustment will come at the appropriate time in order to bring the most positive results for Greece.

Venizelos’ move comes in the wake of vice minister Nikos Nikolopoulos' resignation, who actually denounced his superior minister for the fact that right from the start he has left aside the negotiation with the Troika on employment issues in a way that makes the government seem inconsistent in relation to its pre-election promises. Maximos Mansion handled the issue with passivity and bewilderment, and is just waiting for the noise to pass, in the meantime blaming it on Nikolopoulos’ selfish motives. As expected, the resignation and the letter which accompanied it the brought additional arguments for Tsipras to launch a new attack.

The action of the PASOK leader is clearly negative for the government. ND says that since the postponment of the renegotiation has a political cost, Venizelos wants to record a different attitude in order to avoid his share of the blame and use it to his advantage later on. Venizelos who sees politics in connection with the ongoing weakening of his party insists on creating a national negotiating committee so that he could involve SYRIZA as well, or charge it with avoiding to contribute to the national effort. Of course he wants to overcome the Democratic Left which dives into the same political pool and may be competitors in the reconstitution of the social democratic party. These balances do not escape the attention of the government staff.

Reductions in the special pay scales on the table

The debate will probably include the design and the way to implement the special pay scales with expected wage cuts of about 12% for judicial officials, academics, doctors and uniformed police and army personnel.

Moreover, the political leaders and Stournaras will jointly seek ways to reduce the costs that have fallen on the taxpayers shoulders. Officials are discussing of enabling the repayment of income tax resulting from the income statements received in 2011 in 6 or 9 installments, instead of the current 3.