ATHENS: A new strike barrage hit Greece on Tuesday as the government finalised talks with its EU-IMF creditors on additional spending cuts to secure the prompt payment of a bankruptcy-saving loan.
Civil servants blocked several ministries, teachers and municipal staff walked off their jobs and a key refinery began a protest shutdown ahead of a general strike on October 19.
Hospital workers and prison guards are also striking later this week while tax collectors and bank staff are mobilising next week and lawyers are threatening to join the fray.
Public sector workers are up in arms over pay cuts and plans to put at least 30,000 on temporary leave this year, on top of sacrifices imposed last year to rein in a budget deficit five times over the European Union ceiling.
The spending cuts are mandated by the EU, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank, which in 2010 bailed out Greece with a huge loan.
On Monday, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos declared that he had concluded talks with a mission from the three creditors, or 'troika', whose report later this month will determine if Athens will receive an eight-billion-euro loan disbursement from the bailout package.
Athens is also hoping for improved debt rollover terms from its private creditors. It has a sovereign debt of over 350 billion euros ($474 billion) and faces interest repayments of 17.9 billion euros in 2012, up from 16.3 billion euros in 2011.
In recent days there has been growing speculation that Athens would need a 50-percent writedown -- or perhaps even more -- to make this debt mountain sustainable.
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