Greek lawmakers pass painful reforms to attain fiscal targets

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

World | Sun May 8, 2016 6:43pm EDT

Greek lawmakers pass painful reforms to attain fiscal targets

ATHENS | BY GEORGE GEORGIOPOULOS AND RENEE MALTEZOU

Greece's parliament on early Monday passed a package of unpopular pension and tax reforms that the country's leftist-led government hopes will persuade official creditors to unlock bailout cash.

The measures aim to ensure Greece will attain savings to meet an agreed 3.5 percent budget surplus target before interest payments in 2018, helping it to regain bond market access and render its debt load sustainable.

The vote was a test of the ruling coalition's cohesion, given its wafer-thin majority of three lawmakers in the 300-seat parliament. All of the coalition's 153 lawmakers voted in favor.

Athens wants to boost tax revenues and slash pension spending to reduce the drain on the budget, hoping impressed creditors will unlock aid. But Germany and the IMF remain deadlocked over the terms of country's bailout plan.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-greece-reforms-vote-idUSKCN0XZ0U3

[MisterP]

1. and, a few months later when the bankers fly out of the country with all that money,

everyone will be stumped--STUMPED--how that could happen

especially after that law they passed allowing bankers to fly out of the country with all their money