The Daily Journalist.
Greece agreed in the Eurogroup held this Friday in Brussels to extend their rescue for four months, ceding its position at the start of negotiations. They have three days to file a list of reforms with specific cost or profit figures for the state and will have as “base” the “current agreement” between the Hellenic country and its creditors. It must be approved Tuesday by the finance ministers of the Eurozone.
That window to open flexibility from Europe in the face of leftist proposals which has been positively assessed by Athens. The leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras Saturday who showed the result as a success. “We won a battle but not the war The hard part starts now,” he said in a televised statement. “With the decisive support of the Greek people, yesterday Greece kept straight and decently” said Tsipras.
The Greek leader believes that the outcome of the Eurogroup yesterday cancels austerity commitments of the previous government. “Maybe what happened yesterday will be more important for Europe than for Greece itself,” said the premier. “Our common struggle continues with the Greek people,” stressed, ensuring that the country has left behind the Troika, reductions in wages and pensions and exaggerated surpluses.
One of the most controversial points of the plan should detail Greece on Monday to the Troika is the volume of primary surplus -after the payment of interest on the debt that Greece should get this year. The Greek bailout pact set a primary surplus of 3% of GDP by 2015. Greece wants to reduce it to 1.5% of GDP, but may need to compromise on part of that claim.
“Yesterday we fail the plan of conservative forces in Greece and abroad to stifle our country to our country before February 28. Greece remains dignified and standing and demonstrate that Europe is a space for negotiation and commitments beneficial for both parties and no space extermination, submission and punishment, “said Tsipras.
‘They have not strangled us’
Government spokesman, Gabriel Sakellaridis, has been more graphic this morning: “The Greek economy and the Greek government have not been strangled, as perhaps was the original plan that centers abroad and within the country”, explained in an interview Greek Mega TV channel. “We gain time,” he underlined. “The last three weeks were tough for a new government that we are not trying to fool anyone, did not have the experience,” he stressed Sakelladiridis
For the Minister of Finance, Yanis Varufakis, yesterday’s decision curbed the “fear” and “scaremongering” the flight of deposits in Greece. “Even before we were elected I told the Greeks that if we chose and were in power for more than a few days, cashiers would stop working,” said economist Friday after the meeting in Brussels. In Monday is a holiday in Greece and the government will establish the list knowing that markets and banks in the country will not open until Tuesday.
“The worst has been averted for now,” replied Kostas Karagounis spokesman main opposition party, New Democracy, led by former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. For conservatives SYRIZA leftist government has returned to the same point where the former leader of the country stopped the negotiations, but worse. “The previous government had concluded the output of the memorandum in late February,” he said opposition spokesman
