Pensioners' unions protest austerity cuts as Greek PM speaks at trade fair in north

(8 Sep 2012) Hundreds of demonstrators, including pensioners and trade unionists, took to the streets of Athens on Saturday in protest at an anticipated new round of austerity measures designed to save the country from defaulting on its mountain of debt. Treasurer of the Athens Civil Servant Pensioners Association Yannis Pavlidis said the pension system in Greece was now "in chaos". Greece's austerity monitors from bailout creditors and the European Central Bank are scheduled to arrive in Athens this weekend to prepare a new audit of the country's efforts to right its recession-mired economy and rein in runaway budget deficits. The country's conservative-led coalition government was rushing to finalise a new round of spending cuts for 2013-2014, without which it will stop receiving the vital rescue loans that have shielded Greece from bankruptcy since May 2010. The 11.5 (b) billion euros (14.6 billion US dollars) package follows more than two years of deeply resented income cuts and tax hikes, and has prompted a flurry of protests from state employees, including judges, police, firefighters and university professors. Saturday's protest disrupted traffic and major roads in downtown Athens were blocked to weekend traffic. Pensioner 74-year-old Yannis Logothetis, a former construction worker, said he felt let down by the Greek government. "They have cut our pensions into little pieces. They've imposed an unfair property tax, other taxes, taxes on petrol, the supermarkets are expensive. They have squeezed the life out of us, they've disgraced us," he said. The protests came amid deepening social gloom in Greece as official figures showed its unemployment rate had surged to 24.4 percent in June, which meant that more than 1.2 (m) million people were out of work, many of them youths. Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, elected in late June 2012, will meet the heads of the two centre-left parties on Sunday, a day before talks with senior austerity inspectors from the so-called troika of the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the ECB. A positive report by troika officials would allow the release of a long-delayed 31 (b) billion euros rescue loan instalment, without which Greece will be forced to default on its loans and probably leave the 17-country eurozone. Greece remains locked in a deep recession which by the end of this year is expected to reach a cumulative 20 percent since 2008. Despite repeated pledges over the past three years, successive Greek governments have failed to effectively address deeply ingrained tax evasion, mostly among self-employed professionals and entrepreneurs. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...