New Greek leader snubs Cameron over debt crisis
DAVID Cameron was rebuffed by Greece’s new hardline socialist premier last night over the debt row threatening to plunge Europe into a new financial crisis.
The Prime Minister warned Alexis Tsipras that the European economy desperately needed a solution in the diplomatic stalemate over Greece’s £ 182billion international bail- out.
But Marxist Mr Tsipras insisted his radical Syriza party had been voted into power on an anti- austerity platform and he was not going to back down.
The pair held 30 minutes of talks in Brussels ahead of a European Union summit where leaders were attempting to resolve the row.
Welcoming the Greek leader to his first European Council meeting, the Prime Minister warned him the talks “can go on all night and into the next day”.
Going into his meeting with Mr Tsipras, Mr Cameron said: “I will be saying that what is required between Greece and the eurozone is not a standoff but a solution.
“The British economy is growing and succeeding but we are affected by the situation on the European continent and the longer this stand- off goes on the worse potentially that could be for Britain.”
Officials said the pair had a “flowing discussion and easy exchange” aided by the tieless Greek premier’s fluent English. But a source said Mr Tsipras signalled his determination to stick to a hard- Left anti- austerity programme that brought him election victory last month.
His alliance of socialist academics and former Trotskyist and Maoist revolutionaries are pledged to ease drastic public spending cuts imposed by the EU and the International Monetary Fund.
The row between Greece and the eurozone nations could lead to Greece crashing out of the single currency and sparking another financial meltdown across the continent and beyond.
Greece is demanding an overhaul of around a third of the country’s emergency bailout loans but EU leaders, led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, insist the country must abide by the terms of the bail- out deal.
The current agreement is due to expire on February 28 and Finnish prime minister Alexander Stubb warned that failure to reach a solution would result in “financial mayhem”.
Ahead of the summit, thousands of Left- wing demonstrators gathered in Athens to support Syriza.