00:00The government wants to be able to boost more investments into the country which will allow
00:06to see more growth of businesses but also create new businesses. They want, as you mentioned,
00:10to cut debt which eventually will create a more stable economy, will be able to go and borrow
00:17from international markets at a better rate when they negotiate, but also for the average Greek
00:23they are putting a plan together which pensioners, for the first time since the financial crisis,
00:28will see an increase in their pension by at least 2 to 3 percent. And for those workers,
00:35and for the average worker, they will pay less social security contributions which means at
00:39the end more money in their pocket. Now that's what the government is saying. The opposition,
00:43on the other hand, says that this is too optimistic. If you try to do all this,
00:47it will be impossible to do everything and then what we will see is another conversation of
00:53how we can clean up the mess as these oppositions are saying. So it is a long debate. There's a lot
00:58on the table but there's a lot of criticism of what the government is bringing on the table.
01:02And of course Greece has come a long way since the days of the financial crisis.
01:06What are the key issues for this particular budget?
01:12Well, as they have come along and they have seen a great development from the 2015 financial crisis,
01:20that crisis has left a lot of effects to the Greek economy. So
01:25first thing is the government wants this economic growth that they said is going to go up to 2.3
01:29percent with investments surpassing 8 percent. It sounds great on paper but the problem is like if
01:35it doesn't happen, if this is not implemented properly, then we might see that the country
01:39might be in risky economic conditions. Now they want to do a debt reduction, debt management as
01:45they say. So they want to reduce debt to GDP ratio to 145 to 150 percent. It sounds good on
01:53paper. Again it's a great goal but on the other hand if it doesn't happen then we might be seeing
01:58that the country might go where it was in the past and not be able to negotiate for better terms when
02:03it comes to borrowing from international markets. And for the people who will be receiving this
02:09pension hikes and the workers, it is great but again critics say here that there's a number of
02:15other vulnerable groups for example low-income families or people who are unemployed who haven't
02:20seen any change in the past years over the financial crisis. So there are a lot of things
02:27that there's a lot of criticism what the government wants to do. But the one thing I have to say here
02:31that most of the political parties do agree on and have pretty much accepted is defense spending
02:37especially with what is going on in Ukraine, the latest developments in Syria, but the ongoing
02:43dispute between Greece and Turkey over the waters in the Aegean and the air. So that is the one
02:48thing most political parties are pretty much hugging and accepting of what the government
02:53has to put on the table.
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