Athens - Greek President Carolos Papoulias has called for crisis talks with political leaders on Monday, in a bid to rein in social tensions as the European Union moved to limit the fallout from Greece's debt crunch on world markets.
The talks are being boycotted by representatives of the Communist and left-wing Syriza parties, which have helped mount protests in recent weeks against drastic austerity measures aimed at slashing Greece's budget deficit.
More rallies are expected as the government prepared to unveil an overhaul of the pensions system later on Monday that could see retiree payments in Greece cut by about a quarter, according to reports in Greek newspapers.
"Smaller pensions - more work," read a headline in the Ta Nea daily.
Eleftheros Typos said the draft pensions law due to be approved "will include at least 15 painful changes" from the previous legislation.
The reform would raise the retirement age for women to 65 and increase the number of years that workers have to pay retirement contributions.
Papoulias last week warned that Greece stood on the "edge of the abyss" after violent clashes broke out during a general strike against the government's plans, killing three people in a bank that was firebombed.
The unrest in Greece helped trigger a massive loss of confidence on financial markets, with investors fearful that Greece's fiscal problems could spread to other weakened economies in the eurozone like Portugal and Spain.
Following days of Greece-linked mayhem on financial markets last week, EU finance chiefs on Monday agreed an unprecedented €750bn rescue package with IMF help for crisis-hit euro countries.
The overall package was described as a "big step forward" by International Monetary Fund MD Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
The plan "proves that we shall defend the euro whatever it takes," said the EU's commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, Olli Rehn.
The battered euro currency surged in reaction to the deal and European stock markets soared by between 1.5% and 3.0% at the start of trading.
But in Greece there is widespread anger despite approval of a €110bn bailout from the European Union and the IMF to help the country stay solvent, with many concerned at the cuts demanded by the international lenders.
The pension reform due to be announced on Monday comes comes on top of measures agreed earlier that will eliminate 13th and 14th month pension and public sector wage bonuses, as well as an increase in the sales tax.
But a poll on Sunday showed Greeks grudgingly accepting the need for cuts.
The survey in To Vima showed that 55.2% of respondents would accept austerity measures, while 56.3% preferred wage cuts to national bankruptcy and 71.3% wanted squabbling Greek political parties to cooperate.
- Sapa