Protests in Athens before austerity budget vote

[Joanne98]

Source: AFP

ATHENS — Protests and rubbish clogged central Athens on Wednesday as lawmakers prepared to approve an austerity budget under a tough economic overhaul imposed after the debt-hit country's international bailout.

Unionists, Communists and leftists staged separate demonstrations to reject the economic blueprint containing over 14 billion euros in savings for 2011 in a bid to restore balance to Greece's woeful public finances.

The streets of the capital were already clogged with traffic since morning from a public transport strike -- the fourth this month -- against wage cuts and parts of the city are overflowing with garbage after a sanitation walkout.

The 2011 budget includes cuts in the badly mismanaged Greek health sector and public companies, a two-percent increase in the lower sales tax rate from 11 to 13 percent, a tax evasion crackdown, lower defence spending and a nominal pension freeze.



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[Lucky Luciano]

1. The tax evasion crackdown is probably all they need to do.

Tax evasion in Greece is a national pasttime. People making 500k euros claiming they made 20k is quite common and typically never audited. That will change...