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Over six billion euros turned out to be the black hole of the Greek budget for the filling of which the supervisory troika of the IMF, European Central Bank and the European Commission wants new measures. Because of the laying behind in the implementation of the recovery program and the low revenue flowing into the national treasury, the country faces the challenge to find by the end of 2011 an additional 4.2 billion euros, instead of the initially planned in the end of 2010 only 1.8 billion euros coming from measures and structural reforms. Notwithstanding the efforts made so far, the budget deficit is decreasing at a slower pace than expected and the measures implemented until now for an economic reform don't have the intended effect. 

The dramatic difference between what was planned and executed so far seasoned also with the lack of initiative and coherence in the country, "stiffened" the international markets and now the interest rates on the ten-year Greek government bonds as compared to the German ones amounted to almost 1450 points. In other words, if Greece had to come to the capital markets today in order to borrow money by selling bonds with a ten-year maturity period it had to pay 17.5 percent interest. The foreign debt of the country for the first quarter reached 354.54 billion euros, or 154 percent of the GDP.

After some more adjustments to the calculations it was found that Greece needs structural reforms and measures totaling almost 29 billion euros to reset its budget deficit in 2015. Six of those 29 billion euros must be found by the end of this year, in order to decrease the current deficit of 10.3 percent of the GDP to 7.5 percent of the GDP. According to initial information two billion euros will come from yet another reform in the tax system. One of the scenarios is to eliminate different scales for calculating the value added tax (VAT) and to introduce a common value of the tax of 19%. Today the principal value of VAT is 23%, food and essential goods are at 13% and hotel and other tourist services, as well as medicines are only taxed with VAT of 6.5%. 

So far, this decision has not been announced, but in the medium term economic recovery plan, which must be voted next week in the parliament, is included immediate transfer of certain goods from those imposed with 13% VAT to those with 23% VAT. Inevitably the excise duty on fuel for heating will be made equal to the one for transport earlier and the minimum non taxable income of 12 thousand euros per year might drop to six thousand euros. An exceptional tax for 2011 will have to pay also the citizens with annual income of over 60 thousand euros. All of the listed measures should bring total revenue of 1.4 billion euros by the end of the year. Another 770 million euros should come from increasing the tax burden over trade of luxury goods like yachts, expensive cars and large estates. 

Equally ambitious, but unrealistic sounds also the government plan to save about 2.25 billion euros from cost reduction, reduction of state enterprises, limiting the spending of public funds and hospitals. So far the government of George Papandreu has planned measures for a total of 4.8 billion euros both in the revenue and expenditure sides of the budget. Doubts about whether the government will successfully implement the measures by the end of the year, however, remain. Unfortunately 1.6 billion euros still remain, which the troika wants to be covered in order to pay another dose of financial aid. About them, in the plan published by the Ministry of Finance is written: "Measures, which must be clarified" or in other words the government has no idea what measures to apply and how to save 1.6 billion euros only for the remaining six months of the year. 

Meanwhile, Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou acknowledged that Greece has a financial resources only until July and that if the privatization program does not immediately come into effect from mid-summer on there will be no money to pay pensions and salaries. This desperate confession was needed in order to convince his colleagues  from the Government that the country is on the edge of a crisis from which it might not be able to get away if they don't act quickly. After the meeting of the Council of Ministers, government spokesman George Padalotis announced that a procedure for the sale of 100 percent of the shares of Postal fund, port of Piraeus, Thessaloniki port, the Thessaloniki water organization and the last remaining 16 percent state participation in the telecommunications company OTE starts instantly.

And while the government reorganizes its efforts in order to demonstrate the troika and creditors that Greece deserves the fifth tranche of financial assistance, the Vice-President of the International Monetary Fund, John Lipsky met the MP from the opposition party New Democracy, Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The current president of the IMF said to the Greek member of the parliament about the government of PASOK: "I can not understand why did the reforms begin with cuts in the pensions and salaries, " instead of privatization, which is done today in the last minute. His words were spread from the headquarters of New Democracy in support of the anti-memorandum policy that the opposition supports.