Samaras warns about "painful but necessary" decisions

In his speech to the cabinet, prime minister Antonis Samaras underlined the need to accelerate the government's work and support for difficult measures.

"Now you are aware of your ministries, we need to move even faster," he told the ministers. He asked them to proceed directly with the implementation of measures that will lead to development because "if we only get the 11.5 billion euros from cuts without a development policy, then we will go through 8 years of continuous recession during which we will have lost almost 1/3 of our GDP. We will not allow this to happen; we will expedite any additional policies, privatizations, structural changes and investments, and we will create a permanent actual tax reform."

Referring to the measures, he said they are not in vain and that in two years there will be a different Greece. "The decisions we make will be difficult and painful, but necessary. But they are the last ones and they will be accompanied by recovery policies such as reimbursement of public debt, activation of EU funds, unfreezing of funded projects and combating tax fraud with new methods."

He clarified that recession and unemployment will be stopped by 2013 and that "the country will remain in the euro." Once again he accused those seeking Greece’s exit from the Eurozone, saying that the government has made great progress towards recovery and climate change. "The drachma lobby is indeed very strong inside and outside Greece, but has lost the first big battle," Samaras said, stressing that now there is a lobby with allies of Greece. Stressing that the risk of the country exiting the euro is now gone, he added that "our negotiating position has been strengthened and we have earned our credibility. We stand true to our obligations but Europeans should also be consistent, giving priority to our economic development."

He thanked the ministers for their work so far and also for supporting the changes and reforms. As for the funds that will be given to local authorities, he said "we drained the last drop to support their work."

Noting that the government will move with four-year horizontal measures, he described the programmatic agreement between the three leaders as "gospel" and clarified that everything they have agreed upon will be implemented within 4 years.

SYRIZA: Samaras and his government are dangerous for the country

Regarding the new measures promoted by the government, SYRIZA issued a harsh statement with heavy characterizations against the prime minister. The party leadership refers to Samaras’ pre-election commitments in order to argue that the prime minister "and his government are dangerous for the country."