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Victoria Mindova

The greatest responsibility of PASOK is to not allow the development of ideas hindering the European future of Greece, reporters told the new face of the Greek Socialist Party Fofi Genimata. This week, she officially entered the office as the spokeswoman of PASOK, after going around three ministries in the past two and a half years. Fofi Genimata held key positions in the government of George Papandreou, first in the Ministry of Health, then in the Ministry of Education. While the interim government of Lucas Papademos has been in power, Genimata was appointed Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Regional Development - a post from which she resigned to plunge into the election race along with the newly elected leader of PASOK, Evangelos Venizelos.

"It is our responsibility for the new page opened by PASOK to highlight all the efforts made in recent years. They were difficult years, but we should speak sincerely about the mistakes and omissions made in this period," said Genimata after taking up the new position officially. She said the country should finally go ahead. In her opinion, the political programme of pre-election PASOK must combine in itself a new vision as well as realism, which she indirectly admitted had been missing in the socialist government in recent years.

Political analysts in Greece are adamant that the choice of Fofi Genimata is due not so much to her achievements in political life, as to the good name of her father George Genimatas, who was one of the few politicians in the history of the Left Party with a spotless reputation. He died back in 1994, but he is remembered as an active and courageous politician. Reforms of Genimatas-father as a minister in various governments excelled in efficiency and social character, which resulted in a serious bloc of supporters in PASOK. The positive response from his work has given a strong impetus to the political career of his daughter, on which Venizelos relies.

"The personality of Fofi Genimata is humane. In this difficult time, we need people with sensitivity to human problems and she has it." This is how Evangelos Venizelos justified the choice of Genimata to be the face of the party headed by him. He stressed that Greece is going through a period of uncertainty and pessimism, which will not be overcome if the Greeks do not believe in themselves.

While PASOK is exchanging positions and words of encouragement, the technical group of the supervisory mission of the Troika of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission has arrived in Athens once again. It will seek to save 11.6 billion euro from the budget for the period 2013-2014. Another report on the development of the Greek economy should be released by the end of March. The deficit of the country should drop by about 5.5% of GDP in the next two years. Countries like France, Spain and England are providing technical assistance for introducing key reforms in public administration, health care and taxation to reduce costs in these sectors on the one hand and increase productivity on the other.

The supervisors will put under strict control costs of health care, defence and local government organizations. Wages in the private sector can now be reduced by 20%. As for costs of pensions and benefits, cuts are not so easy. In 2012, Greece must collect 43 billion euro to cover its obligations to its citizens. Of this amount, 30 billion euro will go only for pensions. The cost of salaries in the public sector reaches 17.5 billion euro. Operating costs of public administration remain high to the amount of 11 billion euro. Within this picture, the supervisors will have to find a way to effectively cut the budget and prepare a draft proposal for consolidation until the middle of May this year. Based on this proposal, the final report on the reduction of government spending for 2013-14 will be prepared in June.