ATHENS, Greece - Greece's finance minister outlined deep spending cuts and tax increases Sunday to free up a multi-billion-euro rescue by the International Monetary Fund and European Union, the first bailout for one of the 16 countries using the euro. The measures, which include tax increases and salary and pension cuts for civil servants, aim to reduce the budget deficit to below 3 percent of gross domestic product by 2014, from the current 13.6 percent of GDP, George Papaconstantinou said. "We are called on today to make a basic choice. The choice is between collapse or salvation," he said. The full amount of the three-year IMF/eurozone package will be announced in Brussels after an emergency eurozone finance ministers' meeting, where Papaconstantinou was heading after his Athens news conference. He said the amount would be "close to" widely reported figures. French and other officials have said it would be euro120 billion. Papaconstantinou said savings worth euro30 billion through 2012 would be achieved through public service and pension pay cuts, higher taxes and streamlining government.
