Greek PM defiant amid clash with creditors
Greece ‘won’t take orders’
• Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told lawmakers in Athens the government is seeking a bridge agreement to provide government funding until June, when he hopes to have a more lasting arrangement with international creditors — but former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan warned it’s only a matter of time before Greece leaves the eurozone.
“Greece has submitted its own proposals and won’t take orders any more via emails,” Mr. Tsipras said in a challenge to European Union officials who say the country should request an extension of the current bailout plan. “It is an irrevocable decision of our government to implement its campaign pledges in full.”
Mr. Tsipras, whose Syriza party swept into power two weeks ago, is seeking to keep Greece financially afloat while breaking free from its international bailout program. There are doubts about Greece’s ability to pay its bills, possibly as early as the end of the month.
In a lengthy list of policy actions, Mr. Tsipras also said Sunday evening the government plans to restore the tax-free threshold for individual workers to ¤12,000 ($17,000) a year and gradually raise the minimum wage to ¤751 a month through 2016. Both measures would reverse changes made by previous governments as conditions of Greece’s bailout program. He also ruled out fire sales of state assets designed to revive state finances and said the government would not seek an extension of the bailout program.
“I am not in favour of handing over money to the Greeks,” Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said in an interview with the Kurier newspaper before Mr. Tsipras’s speech. “Who’s supposed to pay for that? I do, however, support negotiations over technical credit conditions so that the country will have more room to manoeuvre to exit the crisis.”
Mr. Faymann, who will host Mr. Tsipras at a one-day summit in Vienna on Monday, also told the newspaper that both Europe and Greece should be spared the option of the country exiting the eurozone.
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, head of the group of 19 eurozone finance ministers, on Friday rejected a short-term financing agreement while Greece negotiates a successor program to its current bailout provided by the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
Greece’s public debt stands at more than ¤320 billion, or about 175% of gross domestic product. That makes Greece Europe’s most-indebted country when measured against output.
Greece has reached a point where no one wants to risk lending money
Greece has reached a point where no one wants to risk lending [it] money any more
to the country any more, according to Mr. Greenspan.
Hours before Mr. Tsipras spoke Sunday, the former Federal Reserve chairman said the nation’s crisis can’t be resolved as long as it remains in the single currency.
“I don’t see that it helps them to be in the euro and I certainly don’t see that it helps the rest of the eurozone,” Mr. Greenspan said in a radio interview with the BBC on Sunday. “I think it’s just a matter of time before everyone recognizes that parting is the best strategy.”
“Greece is in the position that if they don’t get additional loans, then they will default and leave the euro,” Mr. Greenspan said. “At this stage, I don’t see any people who are willing to put up the funds, having been disappointed so often.”
Mr. Greenspan was asked if he backed the approach of Germany, to stand firm and against demands from the new Greek government for leniency in its bailout terms. “I certainly do,” he said. The next showdown with Greece’s EU partners is scheduled for Feb. 11 in Brussels, when Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis faces his 18 eurozone counterparts in an emergency meeting.