Public finance

Referring to the government's insistence that Greece will achieve a clean exit from the bailout in the summer, New Democracy Spokesperson Maria Spyraki said on Sunday that it must seek a clear mandate and call for early elections after August as it has "run out of political fuel."

With several protest rallies scheduled to take place in central Athens on Wednesday, much of the center is expected to be closed off to motorists as police stand by for possible upheaval.

At the same time, the decision was made to narrow the interest rate corridor from 1.5 to 1.25 percentage points, meaning that the deposit facility rate remains unchanged.

The civil servants' union ADEDY has called a 24-hour strike for Wednesday, May 16, to protest the government's continuing austerity program.

The union is calling for wage increases and the restoration of the so-called 13th and 14th salaries. It also opposes plans to abolish the benefits and status of arduous and unhealthy professions.

In making that decision, the Executive Board was primarily guided by the inflation projection and inflation factors in the coming period, the NBS said in a press release.

In accordance with the NBS expectations, inflation in February was lowered to 1.5 percent year-on-year, primarily on account of the high base from the prices of products that underwent one-off hikes early in 2017.

Today elected representatives take the tough decisions about public finances behind closed doors. In doing so democratic politicians rely on the advice of financial bureaucrats, who, often, cater to the political needs of the elected government. Politicians rarely ask voters what they think of budget options. They are no better at explaining the reasons for a budget.

The monetary policy’s effectiveness in curbing inflation will become more apparent in the upcoming period based on a number of factors, including an expected decline in cost effects, the head of the Turkish Central Bank has said.

The civil servants' union ADEDY is planning a 24-hour strike over the coming days to protest the government's continuing austerity program, sources indicated on Monday.

The fact that thousands of Greek commuters are able to ride without charge on the country's public transport system on a daily basis may please sections of the public or even appear as a good "social" policy in these hard times of seemingly endless austerity.

The only problem is that, as is always the case, someone will have to foot the bill in the end.

The Central Bank’s main goal this year is to increase the effectiveness of its monetary policy and rein in double-digit inflation, Governor Murat Çetinkaya told Reuters in an interview on Jan. 25.