Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 17-05-05

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Tsipras to SYRIZA MPs: Greek deal allows country to exit the crisis

[02] Welfare state in Greece has fallen too much behind, says ND VP

[01] Tsipras to SYRIZA MPs: Greek deal allows country to exit the crisis

Forty lawmakers took the floor while Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who chaired the meeting, spoke twice, along with Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos. According to the same sources, lawmakers expressed different views but there were no disagreements. "We are all giving the fight," parliamentary group sources said.

In his reply to MPs, Tsipras reiterated that elections will be held in 2019, adding that with the end of the four-year term, the government and the party will be credited with both the negatives and positives of the deal.

"We must never forget our target: To take our country out of the memorandums and the often humiliating guardianship in the summer of 2018. This is our primary duty, our patriotic duty" he told lawmakers.

He said Greece today has an agreement that allows for the prospect of an exit from the crisis, with a comprehensive deal that includes debt, which was not an easy choice. "However we can claim and prove that it carries the least possible injuries for the social body, considering the conditions in which we are fighting," he added.

The main issues on which lawmakers focused where the high primary surplus and the measures and relief measures agreed with lenders. Sources said the government has not made a plan yet about how to distribute the 2017 surplus, adding this liquidity must not be wasted.

Tsakalotos said the measures and offsetting measures will be implemented simultaneously after 2018 and reiterated that the country's strategy is debt relief, a trial tapping of the markets this summer and Greece's inclusion in the quantitative easing program of the European Central Bank.

Asked about debt relief, the source rejected any possibility of not reaching a solution: "There's not a chance we won't have a solution on the debt. The compromise between Schaeuble and the IMF must be found now. The Fund is asking us for measures of 1 pct [of GDP] from taxation and 1 pct from pensions and measures for debt sustainability. We don't want to fool anyone so we're moving ahead with the voting of the measures but they will only be implemented with a solution on debt."

[02] Welfare state in Greece has fallen too much behind, says ND VP

Attending an event to mark the 10 years since the opening of the "Animus" rehabilitation center, Georgiadis said the state doesn't have the necessary infrastructure to support people who are discharged from a center as "the welfare state in Greece, on many issues and within the crisis we are facing, has fallen very much behind."

He also said the state's weakness in addressing those issues will lessen as Greece regains its economic freedom.

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