Greek farmers launch daily blockade in protest of spending cuts
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece's farmers launched a campaign of daily anti-austerity highway blockades Monday, as the conservative-led government insisted deep spending cuts were helping the crisis-hit country beat budget targets.
Mostly in central and northern Greece, the hour-long roadblocks started at 2:00 p.m. (1200GMT), forcing motorists to take lengthy detours or wait the protests out.
The farmers are angry at a government decision to scrap tax breaks on farming incomes and on gasoline for farm vehicles. They are also protesting against the serious delays in subsidy payments.
The dispute is the latest in an escalating series of labor disputes, fueled by a new round of government pay cuts and tax increases. The austerity measures, introduced this year as the country battles a sixth year of recession and high unemployment, are part of measures imposed in exchange for ongoing rescue loans from the other 16 European Union countries that use the euro and International Monetary Fund.
Deputy Finance Minister Christos Staikouras announced Monday that core government budget spending posted a €165 million ($221 million) surplus in January, compared to a deficit of €490 million ($655 million) for that month last year.
But the preliminary figure, which does not include spending on local government and health insurance, was achieved with a heavy reliance on spending cuts, as revenues remained below target.
January revenues totaled €4.42 billion ($5.91 billion) — €241 million ($322.3 million) short of the government target and €572 million ($765 million) worse than the monthly figure last year.
"For January, the balance is positive ... but there's no room to ease up," Staikouras said.
"Our policy of fiscal adjustment and discipline, across all sections of government, must continue."
The farmers' blockades Monday included a crossing point on the Greek-Bulgarian border. Outside the northern city of Thessaloniki, farmers handed out heads of cabbage and bags of rice to stranded motorists.
A government pledge last week to speed up several key subsidy payments and extend the adjustment period for stricter new retirement rules failed to stop the farmers' protests.
The government has already used rarely enacted emergency powers twice this year to force striking subway and ferry workers to end crippling strikes.
Mostly in central and northern Greece, the hour-long roadblocks started at 2:00 p.m. (1200GMT), forcing motorists to take lengthy detours or wait the protests out.
The farmers are angry at a government decision to scrap tax breaks on farming incomes and on gasoline for farm vehicles. They are also protesting against the serious delays in subsidy payments.
The dispute is the latest in an escalating series of labor disputes, fueled by a new round of government pay cuts and tax increases. The austerity measures, introduced this year as the country battles a sixth year of recession and high unemployment, are part of measures imposed in exchange for ongoing rescue loans from the other 16 European Union countries that use the euro and International Monetary Fund.
Deputy Finance Minister Christos Staikouras announced Monday that core government budget spending posted a €165 million ($221 million) surplus in January, compared to a deficit of €490 million ($655 million) for that month last year.
But the preliminary figure, which does not include spending on local government and health insurance, was achieved with a heavy reliance on spending cuts, as revenues remained below target.
January revenues totaled €4.42 billion ($5.91 billion) — €241 million ($322.3 million) short of the government target and €572 million ($765 million) worse than the monthly figure last year.
"For January, the balance is positive ... but there's no room to ease up," Staikouras said.
"Our policy of fiscal adjustment and discipline, across all sections of government, must continue."
The farmers' blockades Monday included a crossing point on the Greek-Bulgarian border. Outside the northern city of Thessaloniki, farmers handed out heads of cabbage and bags of rice to stranded motorists.
A government pledge last week to speed up several key subsidy payments and extend the adjustment period for stricter new retirement rules failed to stop the farmers' protests.
The government has already used rarely enacted emergency powers twice this year to force striking subway and ferry workers to end crippling strikes.
Those people are unwilling to accept that their government has been overspending for a long time and now has to cut back or the entire country could go bankrupt. Right now they are only living on what they can mooch out of Germany and other EU countries to keep afloat. If they go down several other countries will follow. Europe is in dire financial straights right now and if they don't start cutting the spending they will spend them selves into a hole that they will not be able to climb out of. ObUma is pushing this country right along with them with his drunken spending spree he has been on for the past 4 years. If we don't do some cutting ourselves we will be following Europe into that hole.
 @LongBeachBum Those people are simply unwilling to make the rich "whole" for the money they lost in the US based derivatives and triple A rated scam that our brokers marketed there.
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Its really a lot like the US with the bankers (and the rest of the financial industry), Insurance industry, the auto industry all wanting to be "made whole" by what was the middle class for their bad investments also.They have been made whole and there is no middle class left.
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The funny thing is, I get the impression that most US citizens are happy with transferring their wealth upwards to the rich and have given every indication that they will do so no matter how many times these corrupt businesses go broke.
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The Greeks seem like a much more intelligent group of people then the average US citizen to me at least.
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"Europe is in dire financial straights right now"
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Not nearly as dire as the US's problems right now. The fingers point at Europe to keep you from looking at our problems. The Euro is worth twice what the dollar is right now.
And this is the road that Obama and his liberal nuts want to take us down. I wish voters would wake up.
 @acepaul Bail outs and bonuses for the rich never come from liberals. Liberals would have bailed out home owners and forced business to eat bad investment decisions.
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obama is further right then bush ever hoped to be. The problem here is, the country has moved so far to the right over the last 30 years, people think right wing whack jobs are liberal. If we had true liberals, we'd still have glass steagal and none of this fabricated crisis to enrich the wealthy with.
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We need a strong left to keep the right in check but I dont see that ever happening here, these people just cant connect the dots (yet). Maybe when they have to start burying their starved children in the back yard they will wake up and figure out that transferring wealth upward dont feed the kids.
 @T_BONE_WALKER You must be living on another planet where they call up down and black white.
 @acepaul Exactly, but I dont believe the whole planet is unable to determine the difference between a right winger that starts bail outs and bonuses and a "Left" winger that finishes them. Or a right winger that violates international law and attacks a sovereign nation and a 'left" winger that continues and adds to those attacks. Only in the US do you find people that can see any difference between two right wing, corporatist leaders.
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Under obama, the stock market has fully recovered while millions of the working class starve under bridges. Does that sound like something from the left to you? What would Marx call that?
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Under obama 40% of middle class wealth has disappeared while the rich have increased their wealth by 46%. Under obama, the insurance industry gets 32 million new captive paying customers without any cost containment. Does that sound like something from the left to you? What would Marx call that?
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Under obama we got 11 former employees of Goldman Sachs in the administration starting with Rahm (Screw the Unions) Emanuel. Do you think a leftist would have voted for obama if they had known that was coming?
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obama is further right wing, sneakier and smarter then bush ever was and we are paying for it now and will continue to pay for it later when our enemies that we've created start sending drones this way. Do you think obama will call dead US families collateral damage like he calls innocent foreign families?
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I dont really think youll answer any of those questions because you'd go against your chosen party's line of BS.