Greeks divided over latest austerity measures: Poll

Greeks are divided over the austerity measures unveiled this week, a poll showed on Saturday, signalling waning support for the government's deficit-cutting efforts.

Under the EU and financial markets pressure, Greece announced on Wednesday a new 4.8 billion euro ($6.5 billion) package including bonus cuts for civil servants, a pension freeze and tax hikes to reduce its huge fiscal deficit.                                           

The poll carried out by Kapa Research and published in To Vima newspaper showed 46.6 percent of 1,044 people surveyed backed the fresh measures, while 47.9 percent disapproved.

Saturday's poll came after European leaders expressed confidence on Friday that the new austerity measures planned by Greece would be enough to pull the country out of its debt crisis and make any bailout unnecessary.                                           

Greek prime minister George Papandreou received political support but no promise of any specific financial aid at talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin and with Eurogroup's chairman Jean-Claude Juncker in Luxembourg.                                           

The poll showed most Greeks were against measures which immediately affected them, including a rise of up to 2 percentage points in VAT taxes, a 30 percent cut in public sector Easter, Christmas and holiday bonuses and a pension freeze.  

But about nine out of 10 appeared to strongly support salary cuts for senior government and local authorities officials. The survey, along with a series of protests by trade unions in the last month, indicated that the ruling Socialists, who won a snap October 4 election with a strong a majority, might be losing some of their public support after the new wave of measures. 

Two opinion polls published in late February but before the latest fiscal measures were announced this week showed just over half of Greeks believed the government was tackling the crisis effectively.                                           

About 12,000 demonstrators took to the streets to protest against the new package on Friday but lawmakers still passed the austerity measures bill in an emergency vote.

The main public sector union ADEDY brought forward a planned national strike to March 11 from March 16 and its sister private sector union GSEE said it would join them.

The two unions represent half Greece's 5-million work force. Another poll published on Friday showed strong opposition to some of the measures.