Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 17-03-06

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

CONTENTS

[01] Social protection spending in Greece at 20.5 pct of GDP in 2015, Eurostat reports

[02] Papadimoulis: Part of Greece's debt is price paid for corruption cases

[01] Social protection spending in Greece at 20.5 pct of GDP in 2015, Eurostat reports

Social protection expenditure in EU member-states ranged from 9.6 pct of GDP in Ireland to 25.6 pct of GDP in Finland in that year. Eight member-states (Finland, France, Denmark, Austria, Italy, Sweden, Greece and Belgium) spent more than 20 pct of GDP on social protection while Ireland, the Baltic states, Romania, Cyprus, Malta and the Czech Republic spend less than 13 pct.

The spending related to old age (pensions etc) was the biggest social protection outlay for all EU countries, representing 10.3 pct of GDP, with Greece topping the list at 15.7 pct of GDP, followed by Italy (13.8 pct), France (13.6 pct), Finland (13.4 pct) and Austria (13.1 pct). The lowest rates were in Ireland (2.4 pct), Cyprus and Lithuania (5.8 pct).

The second largest category state spending after social protection in all EU countries was healthcare, running at 7.2 pct of GDP on average, followed by 'general public services' (6.2 pct of GDP), education (4.9 pct of GDP) and economic affairs (4.3 pct of GDP).

In Greece during the same period, state spending on healthcare was relatively low at 4.5 pct of GDP but among the highest in the EU for general public services (9.9 pct of GDP) topped only by Cyprus with 10.2 pct of GDP. Spending on education in Greece was 4.3 pct of GDP, while Greece again ranked first for economic affairs spending (8.9 pct) and defence spending (2.7 pct of GDP).

[02] Papadimoulis: Part of Greece's debt is price paid for corruption cases

"A part of Greek public debt is waste caused by the clientelist state and another part is the price citizens pay because of corruption cases. Either they are related to Siemens and OTE and Intracom, who signed twin contracts, either they have to do with C41, the security system during the Olympic Games, where Siemens was also involved," Papadimoulis, who is also an MEP for SYRIZA, was quoted as saying.

He said the Siemens scandal is maybe "the biggest political-economic scandal in the country since the end of the Junta", noting its size was revealed with the information that came from the United States and Germany. "Politicians and government officials are involved [in the scandal] but also the two then-governing parties, ND and PASOK, whose treasuries pocketed a chunk of Siemens Hellas' turnover," he said.

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