Greek finance official brings austerity package before parliament body

ATHENS, Greece (AP) – Greece’s finance minister presented details of harsh spending cuts and tax hikes to a parliamentary committee on Friday, after tough negotiations with the country’s international creditors.

The measures are to be voted on in parliament next week in two bills that must pass if Greece is to receive a critical installment of its international bailout loans next month, in time to prevent a potentially disastrous default that could drag down European banks and affect other financially troubled European countries.

“Yesterday was a very unpleasant day for me, because I had to tell bitter truths, and we had to agree on very tough measures, measures which also include the element of injustice and the element of overtaxation,” Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos told the financial affairs committee.

He said he could not rule out having to impose even more measures during his tenure as finance minister, although he and his deputies would try to ensure that would not be necessary.

“We can’t keep coming back every so often and ask for corrective measures, but I won’t state that I will never introduce more measures while I am finance minister and am handling a crisis,” he said. “We … will make every humanly possible effort to execute the budget and the midterm program without new measures. But the result depends on the state as a whole, the public administration, the whole market, the tax compliance of all citizens.”