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Victoria Mindova

Five excluded members of PASOK have created another small political formation "Allied Movement," which opposes the policy of the Memorandum of financial assistance and economic cuts. "We give political expression of public discontent with the policy of the Memorandum and the people who can no longer identify themselves with the major ruling parties," said the members of the interim organizational committee Nikos Kotzias, Alexis Mitropoulos, Panagiotis Kouroublis, Antonis Kostakas and Dimitris Tsoukalas.

Nikos Kotzias said that social issues and patriotism are at the core of the new movement. He noted that it is a movement, opposing the policies of cuts and deprivation and he pointed out that everything done to date was wrong. According to the members of "Allied Movement," Greece has lost a lot from the outset of the crisis in 2009 with the first cabinet of George Papandreou. "These people had no experience in negotiations and they accepted any condition set by Europe and the International Monetary Fund, whether promises were achievable or not," said the socialists. They emphasize that the policy pursued was against their ideological attitude and all reforms must be primarily aimed at improving the conditions of life and work of ordinary people. "So far, the pursued policy has protected the strong and put pressure on the weak layers in society. We want to change that."

The good intentions of the deputies excluded from PASOK are no real economic platform to provide an alternative to the reforms included in both the agreements for financial assistance from Europe and the international community and the austerity plan. They emphasize that they are against the specific economic policy, but are still giving general philosophical generalizations of what they support - "man", "freedom", "the right to work and live with dignity." The memebers of the Allied Movement say that they do not face the dilemma of whether Greece should develop within the euro or return to the drachma. In their opinion, the country would exit the eurozone only if the Monetary Union collapsed; otherwise they see the future of Greece within the European community.

Without economic reforms and cuts, however, there will be no financial assistance from Europe, and recent data show that the black hole in the budget for the period January-October 2011 has reached almost € 3 billion. The main reason is that there are serious delays in collecting tax revenues, which reached € 2.1 billion, while spending for the same period exceeded the initially planned values by about € 900 million. The most serious problem now is the collection of the extra property tax, which until now, should have brought € 1.1 billion to the state coffers, but instead, has generated only € 401 million. The general situation with the budget mess makes it clear that the ultimate goal of reducing the deficit to 9% of GDP at the end of 2011 is most unlikely to be achieved.

The supervisory Troika of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission will be back in Athens on December 15 to check the progress of the new government. The plan is for the 2012 budget to be voted by December 7 so that Greece will have an economic platform for the next year at the summit of EU leaders on December 8.

Meanwhile, the leader of the action group of the European Commission, providing technical assistance on the economic growth, Horst Reichenbach, told the German edition of Die Welt, that Greece could attract investments despite the long recession, when it is certain that the bottom has been reached. This time, according to Reichenbach, has not yet come, which makes investors cautious. However, he did not hide that the rescue programme for the Greek economy was significantly delayed and therefore, it could not fully give the desired results today. The group headed by him will be back in Athens next month with concrete proposals and measures that will improve the business climate in the country and will be implemented in parallel with the fiscal consolidation and the recovery programme.