ATHENS — George Papaconstantinou denied yesterday that he was “the most hated man in Greece.” But the austerity package that the Greek finance minister announced on television is likely to make a lot of his compatriots unhappy for years to come.
The long-awaited measures, designed to activate a $145 billion international financial bailout, include tax hikes and enormous cuts in civil servants’ salaries, bonuses and pensions.
The package is almost certain to trigger more social unrest, of which the mayhem in Athens on Saturday was only a foretaste. Militant public-sector unions, seething over their biggest loss of power in decades, have scheduled the next general strike for Wednesday. Backed by the Communist Party and other left-wing groups, they have vowed a campaign of civil disruption for the indefinite future.
As Papaconstantinou warned of tougher times ahead, roads around the capital were packed with expensive four-wheel-drive vehicles as Athenians drove out to enjoy a sunny Sunday in tavernas or at country homes acquired in two decades of credit overdrive.
“Are you really the most hated man in Greece?” a foreign reporter asked Papaconstantinou. “That’s not the impression I get,” he replied. “But the present road is the only possible one to follow.”
The Greek Orthodox Church urged Greeks to get used to slimmer means. “We must all learn to be satisfied with less,” said Metropolitan Anthimos of Salonica, the country’s second most powerful cleric, in a pulpit address. “We must demand that our leaders be more honest.”