23 May 2013

Kathimerini: Irish model inspires Samaras as Stournaras eyes primary surplus, more debt relief

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said that he sees Ireland as the "successful example" Greece should follow to overcome the crisis as he held talks in Athens with his Irish counterpart, Enda Kenny.

Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said Greece’s goal must be to produce a primary surplus, which would force the eurozone to live up to its commitment to reduce the country’s public debt further. Samaras praised the way fellow conservative Kenny, and his government, had tackled Ireland’s difficulties through a “wave of reforms". He said that Ireland’s recipe of low taxes and an export-orientated economy were models that he would like to copy in Greece. “Even after some problems on international markets led to Ireland finding itself in a serious crisis, its competitiveness and its outward-looking nature soon led it out of the crisis”, he said. “Ireland also made another major choice many years ago: To have low rates of taxation. We will follow this example as well as soon as we start coming out of the crisis.”

Samaras repeated his long-standing commitment to lowering corporate tax to a flat rate of 15 per cent and said he was hopeful the troika would accept Greece’s request for value added tax in the food service sector to come down from 23 per cent to 13. The prime minister also pledged to follow Ireland’s lead when Greece takes up the six-month rotating EU presidency at the beginning of next year. Ireland holds the presidency until next month and Samaras said he would also like to focus, as Dublin has done since January, on the issue of job creation and how EU funds could be used in this direction.

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© Kathimerini