Athens, May 01: Thousands of protestors massed in central Athens on Saturday against unprecedented austerity cuts the government is negotiating with the EU and IMF to escape the country’s crippling debt crisis.
Unions and anarchists were expected to use traditional May Day celebrations to vent popular anger against the deep budget cuts as ferry and train services were halted due to striking sailors and conductors.
The protests added fresh pressure on the government as it raced to wrap up negotiations on Saturday with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to slash spending and raise taxes in return for desperately needed loans.
Tensions have run high in recent weeks with police firing tear gas on Thursday at hundreds of demonstrators trying to march on the Finance Ministry to protest against the cuts. Further clashes erupted outside Parliament.
Union leaders want the May Day protests to be a shot over the government’s bow ahead of a May 05 nationwide general strike against budget cuts, which will hit public sector workers particularly hard.
“The country can not emerge from crisis if society has to cope with a brutal drop in living conditions to levels from 50 years ago,” the head of the ADEDY public sector union, Spyros Papaspyrou, said late Friday after talks with several ministers.
The IMF and the EU have asked for Greece to slice off by next year 10 percentage points from a public deficit that reached 13.6 percent of output in 2009, according to a top union official on Thursday.
Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou described on Friday the three-year campaign to restore the public finances to health as “the greatest fiscal adjustment ever carried out in Greece.”
–Agencies