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Economic agency Bloomberg made dissection of the policy of the new PASOK government, starting with the comparison between pre-election speeches of the current Prime Minister Giorgos Papandreou with the current economic policy of the government. The publication notes that for few weeks the big pre-election promises for salary and pensions increases and fair social security policies, have vanished, because the PM faced with the never stopping growth of the budget deficit, which right now exceeds three times the budget deficit of countries in the EU with the record level of 12.7% of the GDP. “The Greek government needs to create a platform together with its people, so that the citizens can support the new changes,” said Rob Dekker, who is one of the investment managers, who helps manage $145 billion in funds in F&C Asset Management Plc in Amsterdam. According to Dekker the new government needs to prove to all international markets that “it is serious regarding decreasing the budget deficit. I do not believe the government has an opportunity not to undertake serious measures for decreasing the budget deficit. The deficit is too big.”

Bloomberg stresses that in January Papandreou will have to bring for voting a new Development Program, which will aim to lower the budget deficit. According to foreign investors he will have to change the course by turning his back to union members, voters and supporters and looking forward to his economy politics by cutting on expenses and gathering income in the Treasury. Regarding the fall of the stock exchange investors are skeptical that soon the spread index will decrease. Bloomberg quotes the Minister of Economy, Development and Shipping Louka Katseli, who said: “We are determined to undertake the right measures but still it will take us three years” to decrease the budget deficit to 3% of the GDP.

The article quotes economic analyzers Mark Wall and Thomas Mayer from Deutsche Bank AG, who note that 75% of the deficit reduction for 2010 is based on increasing taxes and not in cutting expenses. They also define tax evasion in Greece as a “chronic problem”. The economists make an analogue with Ireland, which is also in bad economic shape but the country had announced the drastic expense reduction with €4 billion, or in other words – 10% of the GDP. The country is undertaking this measure despite the biggest strike in the country for the last 30 years.