To γράμμα που έστειλε η Ελληνική κυβέρνηση (μέσω Βαρουφάκη) στον πρόεδρο του Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem με τις προτεινόμενες μεταρρυθμίσεις.
(Με άλλα λόγια, μέσες-άκρες το μνημόνιο.) Αυτό δεν είναι νίκη της Ελληνιλής κυβέρνησης αλλά είναι πολύ καλό για τη χώρα!
Στο αγγλικό πρωτότυπο.
"Dear President of the Eurogroup,
In
the Eurogroup of 20 February 2015 the Greek government was invited to
present to the institutions, by Monday 23rd February 2015, a first
comprehensive list of reform measures it is envisaging, to be further
specified and agreed by the end of April 2015.
In
addition to codifying its reform agenda, in accordance with PM Tsipras’
programmatic statement to Greece’s Parliament, the Greek government
also committed to working in close agreement with European partners and
institutions, as well as with the International Monetary Fund, and take
actions that strengthen fiscal sustainability, guarantee financial
stability and promote economic recovery.
The
first comprehensive list of reform measures follows below, as envisaged
by the Greek government. It is our intention to implement them while
drawing upon available technical assistance and financing from the
European Structural and Investment Funds.
Truly
Ya(ν)nis Varoufakis
Minister of Finance
Hellenic Republic
I. Fiscal structural policies
Tax policies – Greece commits to:
•
Reform VAT policy, administration and enforcement. Robust efforts will
be made to improve collection and fight evasion making full use of
electronic means and other technological innovations. VAT policy will be
rationalized in relation to rates that will be streamlined in a manner
that maximizes actual revenues without a negative impact on social
justice, and with a view to limiting exemptions while eliminating
unreasonable discounts.
• Modify the taxation of collective investment and income tax expenditures which will be integrated in the income tax code.
• Broaden definition of tax fraud and evasion while disbanding tax immunity.
•
Modernizing the income tax code and eliminating from it tax code
exemptions and replacing them, when necessary, with social justice
enhancing measures.
• Resolutely enforce and improve legislation on transfer pricing.
•
Work toward creating a new culture of tax compliance to ensure that all
sections of society, and especially the well-off, contribute fairly to
the financing of public policies. In this context, establish with the
assistance of European and international partners, a wealth database
that assists the tax authorities in gauging the veracity of previous
income tax returns.
Public Finance Management – Greece will:
•
Adopt amendments to the Organic Budget Law and take steps to improve
public finance management. Budget implementation will be improved and
clarified as will control and reporting responsibilities. Payment
procedures will be modernized and accelerated while providing a higher
degree of financial and budgetary flexibility and accountability for
independent and/or regulatory entities.
• Devise and implement a strategy on the clearance of arrears, tax refunds and pension claims.
• Turn the already established (though hitherto dormant) Fiscal Council into a fully operational entity.
Revenue
administration – Greece will modernize the tax and custom
administrations benefiting from available technical assistance. To this
end Greece will:
• Enhance the
openness, transparency and international reach of the process by which
the General Secretary of the General Secretariat of Public Revenues is
appointed, monitored in terms of performance, and replaced.
•
Strengthen the independence of the General Secretariat of Public
Revenues (GSPR), if necessary through further legislation, from all
sorts of interference (political or otherwise) while guaranteeing full
accountability and transparency of its operations. To this end, the
government and the GSPR will make full use of available technical
assistance.
• Staff adequately,
both quantitatively and qualitatively, the GSPR and in particular the
high wealth and large debtors units of the revenue administration and
ensure that it has strong investigative/prosecution powers, and
resources building on SDOE’s capacities, so as to target effectively tax
fraud by, and tax arrears of, high income social groups. Consider the
merits of integrating SDOE into GSPR.
•
Augment inspections, risk-based audits, and collection capacities while
seeking to integrate the functions of revenue and social security
collection across the general government.
Public spending – The Greek authorities will:
•
Review and control spending in every area of government spending (e.g.
education, defense, transport, local government, social benefits)
•
Work toward drastically improving the efficiency of central and local
government administered departments and units by targeting budgetary
processes, management restructuring, and reallocation of poorly deployed
resources.
• Identify cost saving
measures through a thorough spending review of every Ministry and
rationalization of non-salary and non-pension expenditures which, at
present, account for an astounding 56% of total public expenditure.
•
Implement legislation (currently in draft form at the General Accounts
Office - GAO) to review non-wage benefits expenditure across the public
sector.
• Validate benefits
through cross checks within the relevant authorities and registries
(e.g. Tax Number Registry, AMKA registry) that will help identify
non-eligible beneficiaries.
•
Control health expenditure and improve the provision and quality of
medical services, while granting universal access. In this context, the
government intends to table specific proposals in collaboration with
European and international institutions, including the OECD.
Social security reform – Greece is committed to continue modernizing the pension system. The authorities will:
•
Continue to work on administrative measures to unify and streamline
pension policies and eliminate loopholes and incentives that give rise
to an excessive rate of early retirements throughout the economy and,
more specifically, in the banking and public sectors.
• Consolidate pension funds to achieve savings.
• Phase out charges on behalf of ‘third parties’ (nuisance charges) in a fiscally neutral manner.
•
Establish a closer link between pension contributions and income,
streamline benefits, strengthen incentives to declare paid work, and
provide targeted assistance to employees between 50 and 65, including
through a Guaranteed Basic Income scheme, so as to eliminate the social
and political pressure for early retirement which over-burdens the
pension funds.
Public administration & corruption – Greece wants a modern public administration. It will:
• Turn the fight against corruption into a national priority and operationalize fully the National Plan Against Corruption.
•
Target fuel and tobacco products’ smuggling, monitor prices of imported
goods (to prevent revenue losses during the importation process), and
tackle money laundering. The government intends immediately to set
itself ambitious revenue targets, in these areas, to be pursued under
the coordination of the newly established position of Minister of State.
• Reduce (a) the number of
Ministries (from 16 to 10), (b) the number of 'special advisors' in
general government; and (c) fringe benefits of ministers, Members of
Parliament and top officials (e.g. cars, travel expenses, allowances)
•
Tighten the legislation concerning the funding of political parties and
include maximum levels of borrowing from financial and other
institutions.
• Activate
immediately the current (though dormant) legislation that regulates the
revenues of media (press and electronic), ensuring (through
appropriately designed auctions) that they pay the state market prices
for frequencies used, and prohibits the continued operation of
permanently loss-making media outlets (without a transparent process of
recapitalization)
• Establish a
transparent, electronic, real time institutional framework for public
tenders/procurement – re-establishing DIAVGEIA (a side-lined online
public registry of activities relating to public procurement)
•
Reform the public sector wage grid with a view to decompressing the
wage distribution through productivity gains and appropriate recruitment
policies without reducing the current wage floors but safeguarding that
the public sector’s wage bill will not increase
•
Rationalize non-wage benefits, to reduce overall expenditure, without
imperilling the functioning of the public sector and in accordance with
EU good practices
• Promote
measures to: improve recruitment mechanisms, encourage merit-based
managerial appointments, base staff appraisals on genuine evaluation,
and establish fair processes for maximizing mobility of human and other
resources within the public sector
II. Financial stability
Installment schemes – Greece commits to
• Improve swiftly, in agreement with the institutions, the legislation for repayments of tax and social security arrears
•
Calibrate installment schemes in a manner that helps discriminate
efficiently between: (a) strategic default/non-payment and (b) inability
to pay; targeting case (a) individuals/firms by means of civil and
criminal procedures (especially amongst high income groups) while
offering case (b) individuals/firms repayment terms in a manner that
enables potentially solvent enterprises to survive, averts free-riding,
annuls moral hazard, and reinforces social responsibility as well as a
proper re-payment culture.
• Decriminalize lower income debtors with small liabilities
•
Step up enforcement methods and procedures, including the legal
framework for collecting unpaid taxes and effectively implement
collection tools
Banking and Non-Performing loans. Greece is committed to:
• Banks that are run on sound commercial/banking principles
•
Utilize fully the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund and ensure, in
collaboration with the SSM, the ECB and the European Commission, that it
plays well its key role of securing the banking sector’s stability and
its lending on commercial basis while complying with EU competition
rules.
• Dealing with
non-performing loans in a manner that considers fully the banks’
capitalization (taking into account the adopted Code of Conduct for
Banks), the functioning of the judiciary system, the state of the real
estate market, social justice issues, and any adverse impact on the
government’s fiscal position.
•
Collaborating with the banks’ management and the institutions to avoid,
in the forthcoming period, auctions of the main residence of households
below a certain income threshold, while punishing strategic defaulters,
with a view to: (a) maintaining society’s support for the government’s
broad reform program, (b) preventing a further fall in real estate asset
prices (that would have an adverse effect on the banks’ own portfolio),
(c) minimizing the fiscal impact of greater homelessness, and (d)
promoting a strong payment culture. Measures will be taken to support
the most vulnerable households who are unable to service their loans
•
Align the out-of-court workout law with the installment schemes after
their amendment, to limit risks to public finances and the payment
culture, while facilitating private debt restructuring.
• Modernize bankruptcy law and address the backlog of cases
III. Policies to promote growth
Privatization
and public asset management – To attract investment in key sectors and
utilize the state’s assets efficiently, the Greek authorities will:
•
Commit not to roll back privatizations that have been completed. Where
the tender process has been launched the government will respect the
process, according to the law.
•
Safeguard the provision of basic public goods and services by privatized
firms/industries in line with national policy goals and in compliance
with EU legislation.
• Review
privatizations that have not yet been launched, with a view to improving
the terms so as to maximize the state’s long term benefits, generate
revenues, enhance competition in the local economies, promote national
economic recovery, and stimulate long term growth prospects.
•
Adopt, henceforth, an approach whereby each new case will be examined
separately and on its merits, with an emphasis on long leases, joint
ventures (private-public collaboration) and contracts that maximize not
only government revenues but also prospective levels of private
investment.
• Unify (HRDAF) with
various public asset management agencies (which are currently scattered
across the public sector) with a view to developing state assets and
enhancing their value through microeconomic and property rights’
reforms.
Labor market reforms – Greece commits to:
•
Achieve EU best practice across the range of labor market legislation
through a process of consultation with the social partners while
benefiting from the expertise and existing input of the ILO, the OECD
and the available technical assistance.
•
Expand and develop the existing scheme that provides temporary
employment for the unemployed, in agreement with partners and when
fiscal space permits and improve the active labor market policy programs
with the aim to updating the skills of the long term unemployed.
•
Phasing in a new ‘smart’ approach to collective wage bargaining that
balances the needs for flexibility with fairness. This includes the
ambition to streamline and over time raise minimum wages in a manner
that safeguards competiveness and employment prospects. The scope and
timing of changes to the minimum wage will be made in consultation with
social partners and the European and international institutions,
including the ILO, and take full account of advice from a new
independent body on whether changes in wages are in line with
productivity developments and competitiveness.
Product market reforms and a better business environment – As part of a new reform agenda, Greece remains committed to:
• Removing barriers to competition based on input from the OECD.
• Strengthen the Hellenic Competition Commission.
•
Introduce actions to reduce the burdens of administrative burden of
bureaucracy in line with the OECD’s input, including legislation that
bans public sector units from requesting (from citizens and business)
documents certifying information that the state already possesses
(within the same or some other unit).
•
Better land use management, including policies related to spatial
planning, land use, and the finalization of a proper Land Registry
•
Pursue efforts to lift disproportionate and unjustified restrictions in
regulated professions as part of the overall strategy to tackle vested
interests.
• Align gas and electricity market regulation with EU good practices and legislation
Reform of the judicial system – The Greek government will:
• Improve the organization of courts through greater specialization and, in this context, adopt a new
Code of Civil Procedure.
• Promote the digitization of legal codes and the electronic submission system, and governance, of the judicial system.
Statistics – The Greek government reaffirms its readiness to:
•
Honor fully the Commitment on Confidence in Statistics, and in
particular the institutional independence of ELSTAT, ensuring that
ELSTAT has the necessary resources to implement its work program.
•
Guarantee the transparency and propriety of the process of appointment
of the ELSTAT President in September 2015, in cooperation with EUROSTAT.
IV. Humanitarian Crisis – The Greek government affirms its plan to:
•
Address needs arising from the recent rise in absolute poverty
(inadequate access to nourishment, shelter, health services and basic
energy provision) by means of highly targeted non-pecuniary measures
(e.g. food stamps).
• Do so in a
manner that is helpful to the reforming of public administration and the
fight against bureaucracy/corruption (e.g. the issuance of a Citizen
Smart Card that can be used as an ID card, in the Health System, as well
as for gaining access to the food stamp program etc.).
• Evaluate the pilot Minimum Guaranteed Income scheme with a view to extending it nationwide.
• Ensure that its fight against the humanitarian crisis has no negative fiscal effect."
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