Argument over budget content keeps going

The clash between Alternate Finance Minister Giorgos Houliarakis and the Parliament’s Budget Office head Frangiskos Koutentakis continued on Thursday in the House over whether the draft budget presents one or two fiscal scenarios, one with and one without the planned pension cuts.

Koutentakis rejected Houliarakis’s claim the PBO made a mistake in speaking of a two-scenario budget, saying he produced no evidence to back up the claim. Houliarakis then refused to backtrack, arguing that the baseline scenario, including the cuts, reflects figures “in the absence of the government.”

Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos again said the pension cuts will be avoided in January, and accused New Democracy of being willing to send “the country to hell” in order for Alexis Tsipras’s government to go, claiming ND has been speculating on the banks for over a month.