ATHENS: Greece on Saturday blasted calls by EU and IMF officials for a massive privatisation drive worth 50 billion euros by 2015 to alleviate the country's crushing debts."The behaviour of the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank representatives ... was unacceptable," government spokesman George Petalotis said in a statement.
"We asked them to help and are fully meeting our obligations. But we did not ask anybody to meddle in the internal matters of the country," he said. Auditors from the EU, the IMF and the ECB a 'troika' supervising Greece's recovery from near bankruptcy on Friday told Athens to start selling state assets and speed up reforms to keep its tortuous recovery on track.It is well known that there is huge potential for privatisation," European Commission representative Servaas Deroose told a news conference. A omprehensive plan through 2015 will be finalised ... aiming at proceeds of 50 billion euros ($68 billion) between 2011 and 2015," he said.
Out of that total, to be used for debt reduction, 15 billion euros is to come in the next two years, the EU official said.The Greek government had originally planned to privatise state assets worth seven billion euros over three years.
It had announced in November a sale list including four Airbus A340 jets and stakes in one of the country's top casinos and unspecified stakes in public-owned defense, train and mining companies. We are in need but we also have limits," Petalotis said on Saturday.
"We will not bargain the limits of our dignity with anybody. We only take orders from the Greek people," he said, adding that no state land would be sold.The Socialist government of George Papandreou has already endured a wave of social anger over unprecedented wage cuts and tax hikes last year to reduce the public deficit by six percent of output, a huge correction by any standards.
Its objective is to bring the deficit to below three percent of output the level mandated under EU rules by 2014.
A planned extension of austerity reforms to 2015, two years after the government's current mandate, has prompted speculation that the government could call early elections.
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