债务危机与面包师傅

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2020年07月19日

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债务危机与面包师傅

希腊终于与其他欧盟国家达成一致，得到了新一轮的援助计划。但是，这一新的援助计划伴随着欧盟其他债权国对于希腊的国家管理与改革的介入性要求。随之引起的改革漩涡里，有一群人被影响的并且格外显眼——面包师。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

conspicuous 显眼的

per se 本身

tangle 纠缠，乱作一团

VAT (Value Added Tax) 增值税

OECD 经合组织

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Greece bakers rise to reform challenge（510words）

By Christian Oliver and Eleftheria Kourtali

* * *

Among the many sectors of the Greek economy facing sweeping reforms as part of an agreement to keep the country in the eurozone, one is a conspicuous oddity: bakeries.

“I laughed when I read in the papers that, during the 17 hours of the summit, they were negotiating about what will happen with bread,” said Michael Mousios, president of the Greek bakers’ federation. “It is hilarious to think that the problem of Greece is whether bread will be sold in beauty salons or not!”

Although bakeries may not have triggered Greece’s debt crisis, per se, creditor demands that they face a shake-up are one indication of the highly intrusive terms of the €86bn outline bailout package they agreed with Athens on Monday morning.

The agreement is not only a means to keep Athens afloat, but is supposed to open up and refashion what is widely viewed as Europe’s most protected economy.

Pharmacies, which have until now been shielded from supermarket competition, and the Greek dairy industry, where a tangle of health regulations account for unusually high milk prices, have also been targeted by creditors determined to create a more competitive Greece.

In the bread business, the long-running complaint was that small bakeries were protected by rules that prevented the sale of bread in other shops, such as supermarkets. Those restrictions have been dropped but Greece’s international creditors are now likely to push for reforms in two other contentious areas: standardised bread weights and VAT.

Greek bakers have traditionally used standard weights for loaves. Theodoros Dimou, a baker in the Athenian suburb of Aghia Paraskevi, told the Financial Times that he made two weights: 1kg or 500g. He added that his koulouri rings had been standardised at 80g for 30 years.

The OECD has recommended dropping these standardisations as a way to improve consumer choice and open the market to more exports.

From the more industrial side of the industry, George Mavromaras of the Greek association of plant bakeries identified tax as the key issue. He argued that reforms should narrow the VAT gap between the 13 per cent paid on fresh bread bought from bakeries and the 23 per cent on bread bought from supermarkets. “This is a big discrimination — a big handicap,” he said.

The biggest fear for small producers such as Mr. Dimou is that liberalising the industry will mean that businesses such as cafés and pastry sellers, which do not bake products themselves, will be able to use the name fournos, or bakery. “That is confusing to customers and it is not right,” complained Mr. Dimou.

Mr. Mousios agreed. “We cannot have a shop selling bread coming from Morocco calling itself a bakery,” he said, claiming that Greece’s 15,000 small artisanal bakeries created 140,000 jobs.

As bakers waited for the reforms to be spelt out in legislation, rumours abounded.MrDimou said speculation was rife that loaves encrusted with seeds could be pushed into the 23 per cent VAT bracket.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

“There is a rumour that the seeded loaves will be defined as a luxury product,” he said.

1. Which country is named by the author as “Europe’s most protected economy”?

a. Greece

b. Germany

c. France

d. UK

2. Which condition about bakeries the European creditorsdoes not want to change?

a. VAT

b. Standard Bread Weight

c. Import ingredient

d. Government protection