ATHENS: Dimitris Damianidis is a high school teacher and a strong supporter of Greece’s socialist government.But that won’t deter him from going on strike with hundreds of thousands of other public sector workers next week to fight for the 28,000-euro pension that he expects to receive annually after he turns 60 next year.

“Why should I as a worker pay for the errors in policies?” he asked, in response to reports that the embattled Greek state will cut his pay and, by extension, retirement benefits. “The worker can’t be the scapegoat. So we have to defend ourselves.”

As Damianidis and others on the state payroll prepare to stop work on Wednesday, fear is building that the country’s new government may lack the nerve to cut public wages and pension payments, which make up 51 percent of its budget.

Over the past decade, Greece took full advantage of a strong euro and rock-bottom interest rates to fuel a debt binge by the country’s consumers and its government. This year, if Greece can’t persuade investors to buy 53 billion euros of its government debt, it may have to seek a bailout from its European Union brethren or the International Monetary Fund – or, worse, default.

The stakes are high, not just for Greece but for the entire euro zone, where efforts to forge a common economic identity are threatened by the financial crisis. Last week, the panic spread to Portugal and Spain, and the cost of insuring their debt against a default soared to record levels as investors bet that, like Greece, governments in those countries won’t be able to rein in bloated budgets.