TUAC NEWS

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OECD and Greece to cooperate on reforms needed to ensure inclusive growth

12/03/2015

  • JOINT DOCUMENT OF CO-OPERATION BETWEEN GREECE AND THE OECDpdf

Today, the OECD held a meeting with the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Paris to discuss collaboration on the design and implementation of future reforms. As Tsipras underlined in his closing speech those would need to lead to inclusive and sustainable economic growth while decreasing costs and risks for the Greek society. The TUAC intends to ensure a union voice in this process and to monitor OECD outputs in this regard.

The meeting resulted in a Joint Document of Co-operation (see pdf download on the right) aiming to strengthen the collaboration between OECD experts and Greek ministers on a range of issues including:
  • Boosting job creation. By improving active labour market policies and in particular assist the young to find jobs and upgrade their skills. Reforms are required to ensure that jobs created meet real needs and generalise good labour practices.
  • “Reducing the administrative burden to business.” The Greek government is keen to encourage young people in particular to set up new businesses in promising areas such as e-commerce, green technologies and software development. 
  • Public finance and spending. The OECD and the Greek government plan to work together to improve the efficiency of public financial management frameworks.
  • Transparency and integrity. The OECD intends to provide technical assistance on making general principles, such as the National Plan against Corruption, fully operational including through training on e-procurement.
  • Strengthening the tax system. Tackling tax avoidance and evasion is part of the OECD current work on the G20 BEPS Action Plan and the new global standard on automatic exchange of tax information. The OECD suggests a rapid implementation of the standard in Greece to help tracing funds held offshore.
  • “Disrupting oligopolies and cartels through greater competition and product market reform”
Among those accompanying Prime Minister Tsipras at today’s discussions were Yanis Varoufakis, Finance Minister, and Euclid Tsakalotos, Alternate Minister for International Economic Relations.

The co-ordination of a joint steering group has been set up today, which will be composed of OECD officials and representatives of the Greek Government.