Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, seeking re-election next year, said yesterday/Sunday that Greece would not need to cut pensions or raise taxes as planned because it was beating the budget targets agreed with its lenders.

Tsipras, a leftist elected in 2015 but trailing badly in opinion polls, also pledged not to row back on those targets now that Greece has emerged from almost a decade of financial bailouts and enforced austerity. Tsipras used a trade fair in Thessaloniki to announce sweeping tax breaks in the next few years, as well as ruling out an early election.

"These relief measures are the least we can do for a public that has borne huge burdens," Tsipras told a news conference. "Greece will not return to bailouts again".

Tsipras is walking a tightrope as he wants to appease a public fed up with cutbacks while reassuring markets sensitive to any sign of easing up on fiscal consolidation.

Greece emerged from an economic adjustment programme with the European Union in August, but must still keep a primary budget surplus of 3.5 percent of GDP until 2022. To reassure its lenders, Athens has legislated further pension cuts to take effect in 2019, and a reduction in the taxable earnings threshold from 2020. But Tsipras said both would be unnecessary since fiscal targets would be exceeded.