Greece Announces New Measures to Close Budget Gap

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Greece Announces New Measures to Close Budget Gap
By NIKI KITSANTONIS
Published: September 11, 2011


ATHENS — With foreign creditors and global markets piling pressure on Greece to meet the conditions of an international bailout and stave off a default that would shake the euro zone, the debt-ridden government announced further budget cuts on Sunday and introduced a one-time property tax, even as thousands of Greeks protested months of austerity.

The announcement of the new fiscal measures, made Sunday by Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos on the sidelines of an annual trade fair in the northern port of Salonika, came days after fresh speculation in the foreign media of an imminent default by Greece — reports that Mr. Venizelos dismissed as “a game in bad taste, an organized piece of speculation against the euro.”

It also came just days before auditors from the European Union and International Monetary Fund were due to return to Athens to check the government’s progress in plugging a budget shortfall estimated at 2
billion, or $2.7 billion, a step toward qualification for the next
installment of emergency loans on which the country’s solvency depends.

Athens is expecting to receive another

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/1 ... ht-austerity12.html