The property-tax manoeuvre is part of what has now become a ritual between Greece and the international lenders who are bailing it out: the country teeters on the brink of running out of money—Greece has only enough to last until mid-October—and then hurriedly promises fresh measures to win more.
On Sunday, the Greek finance minister outlined a plan to cover a €2 billion shortfall with a special property tax—to be collected on property owners' electric bills, the better to be assured it is actually paid. On Monday, two senior International Monetary Fund officials said Greece's new measures would be enough to qualify it for an €8 billion slice of bailout money. "The pressure in Greece has increased from all sides because it has repeatedly failed to deliver what it promises", one of the officials said. "The Greeks took new measures which address the shortfall and we expect there will be agreement" for the aid tranche.
The challenge facing the Greek government was illustrated Monday as new Finance Ministry figures showed that the country continued to have trouble taming its deficit. For the first eight months of the year, the state budget deficit was 22 per cent wider than a year earlier. On Monday, thousands of Greek tax collectors and customs officials walked off the job in the first day of a two-day strike over plans to cut civil service salaries.
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