Greek prime minister pleads for fair deal
Tsipras promises to deliver detailed reform proposals within 48 hours
GREEK Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras pleaded in the European Parliament yesterday for a fair deal to keep his country in the eurozone, acknowledging Greece’s own responsibility for its plight, after EU leaders gave him five days to come up with reforms.
With its banks closed, cash withdrawals rationed and the economy in freefall, Greece has never been closer to a total state bankruptcy that would probably force it to print an alternative currency and leave the euro.
Yet the leftist premier seemed relaxed and confident, with a note of humility, when he appeared before EU lawmakers in Strasbourg to cheers and scattered boos.
Speaking hours after eurozone peers, at another emergency summit in Brussels, set Greece a deadline of the end of the week to come up with convincing reform proposals, Tsipras said Greeks had no choice but to demand a way out of “this impasse”.
“We are determined not to have a clash with Europe but to tackle head on the establishment in our own country and to change the mindset which will take us and the eurozone down,” he said.
He promised to deliver detailed reform proposals in the next 48 hours and mostly eschewed the angry rhetoric that has alienated many European partners, although he criticised attempts to “terrorise” Greeks into voting for “never-ending austerity”.
Speaking before him, European Council president Donald Tusk repeated that the final deadline for Greece to submit convincing reform plans and start implementing them was this week.
“Our inability to find an agreement may lead to the bankruptcy of Greece and the insolvency of its banking system,” Tusk said. “And for sure it will be most painful for the Greek people. I have no doubt that this will affect Europe. If someone has any illusion that it will not, they are naive,” he said.
Some EU lawmakers held up “Oxi” (No) signs to back Greek voters’ rejection of more austerity.
Under a timetable agreed at yesterday’s second emergency eurozone summit in less than two weeks, Greece will submit a formal application for a medium-term loan programme from the European Stability Mechanism bailout fund along with a first reform programme, to be detailed today.
If experts from the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund deem the proposals viable, eurozone finance ministers would meet on Saturday to recommend opening negotiations with Athens, and a special summit of the 28-nation EU would meet on Sunday to approve an aid plan.
Before then, Greece is supposed to rush a first wave of reform measures through parliament, eurozone sources said, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she would ask parliament in Berlin to authorise the opening of loan negotiations provided the Greek measures are deemed satisfactory. – Reuters