Greece's Samaras Presents Economy Plan

By NEKTARIA STAMOULI

ATHENS—Greece's conservative New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras outlined the party's economic policy Sunday, emphasizing measures on privatization, tax evasion, and government spending, but came up short with many of the details.

Mr. Samaras, head of the center-right New Democracy party and seen as most likely to be the country's next prime minister, said the May 6 elections are the most critical since the return of democracy to Greece in 1974.

"Our goal is to change everything: the growth model, the way of government, not just one or the other, both," Samaras said during a speech in Athens.

He said that in the first six weeks after the elections he will present four bills: one that will reform the country's pension funds and benefits paid by the state; a bill to create a more simple, fair and stable tax system; a bill to minimize public costs; and an omnibus bill which will include development priorities and institutional interventions "to loosen the economy."

The first task of the new government will be to detail by June how the country will impose some €11 billion (£14.54 billion) in further austerity measures to cover the expected budget gaps in 2013 and 2014.

These funds would mainly come by cutting "waste that exists everywhere" in the public sector, Mr. Samaras said.

On the privatization plan, Mr. Samaras said that "whatever can be privatized, will be privatized. Especially in the energy sector, privatization requires strategic planning."

The elections will be the country's first since its economic crisis began in late 2009. New Democracy and socialist Pasok have backed the interim government of Lucas Papademos after the fall last November of George Papandreou's administration.

Recent polls show that the May 6 elections will produce a highly fragmented parliament comprising a large number of small left-wing and right-wing parties opposed to the current austerity program, but New Democracy and Pasok would renew their coalition government if elections were held today.

Write to Nektaria Stamouli at nektaria.stamouli@dowjones.com