ATHENS face of opposition from Germany, the Greek Government seeks from this weekend allies in Europe to end austerity and restructure its voluminous debt. Before engaging on Sunday a European tour that will begin with Cyprus, the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, launched an appeal for calm, saying that his team did not act “so unilateral on the issue of Greek debt “
In a statement from his office, the coach said that” the agreement with our partners Europe has just begun. “
He added that they need” time to breathe and create our own medium-term recovery program “consisting of balanced budgets and action against corruption, clientelism and tax evasion.
The first movements of the government dominated by the radical left Syriza are being followed closely throughout Europe, particularly in Spain. Your partner can pulled Saturday tens of thousands in Madrid, in a “march of change” against the “caste” leader.
Germany opposes
Since this weekend, Varoufakis and Tsipras will find allies in France and Italy, two countries receptive to their arguments.
Varoufakis ahead of this Saturday his visit to Paris, where on Sunday afternoon will meet with President Michel Sapin and the Minister of Economy, Emmanuel Macron.
On Monday he will meet in London his British counterpart George Osborne, and Tuesday in Rome will see the Italian Pier Carlo Padoan.
Tsipras for his side will be on Tuesday in Rome with his Italian counterpart, Matteo Renzi, and Wednesday in Paris with the French President François Hollande.
Try and make friends as well against the intransigence of Germany, and after announcing on Friday that his government wants to break the troika of creditors (or CE European Commission, European Central Bank or ECB and International Monetary Fund, or IMF) and its austerity policies.
The Chancellor Angela Merkel warned on Saturday that “a new removed from the Greek debt” does not arise, and recalled that in 2012 the creditors private forgave Athens half sovereign debt they had, or about 106,000 million.
In tune with the Chancellor, the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble spoke in the newspaper Die Welt with the option of a new off and said that “when one knows the financing of the Greek debt, know that until 2020 no problem”.
In a very pessimistic note, analysts at German bank Berenberg said that after the return to growth in 2014 (the official forecast is 0.6%), “the arrival of Syriza to power seems to push the Greek economy to the brink of a new recession. “
Despite five years of adjustment, the Greek public debt remains astronomical levels (175% of GDP) and the government of SYRIZA requires a rebate of 50% for full revitalize the economy.
To address the issue of debt, the Greek government announced Saturday that it has hired as a consultant to the French bank Lazard.
On Friday, the director of this entity, Matthieu Pigasse, advocated halving Greek sovereign debt held by public creditors, implying a haircut 100,000 million (the total public debt of Athens amounts to around 315,000 million).
The Greek government announced on Friday not to receive the last tranche of aid pending, some 7,000 million euros. And he also said he did not want to prolong the rescue, which expires on February 28.
His attitude was criticized by the head of the Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who said Friday in Athens that “ignore previous agreements is not the way forward “.
And the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, said Sunday that he found it “irresponsible” the intention of the Greek government not work with the troika “on the current basis” .
During the week, the Executive also announced a flurry of measures to end austerity policies and privatization applied from 2010 return for two bailouts totaling 240,000 million euros.
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