May 17, 2011
Under huge pressure to rein in Greece's spiralling debt following Monday's eurozone meeting in Brussels, Athens appears to have finally bitten the bullet by promising to do the unthinkable: sack civil servants.
With fury mounting over the lack of progress the recession-hit country has made in implementing reforms in return for loans, the government said on Tuesday that it would forge ahead with mass layoffs in the one million strong state-sector. "If someone is not considered worthy of working in the public sector ... then no one can say that he should automatically continue to burden the Greek taxpayer," said Yiannis Ragousis, the interior minister. "The system of blind transferals [within the sector] has to stop. Civil servants will be evaluated and sacked," he said, if they fail to make the grade.
The promise came as Athens's troika of creditors – the EU, ECB and IMF – signalled it was running out of patience with Greece's inability to adhere to a fiscal programme aimed at lowering its debt that is projected to reach 160% of GDP in 2012.
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