May 27, 2011
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou said he’ll press ahead with new austerity measures after failing to win support from the nation’s main opposition parties as he races to keep aid flowing and avoid default.
Antonis Samaras, leader of Greece’s biggest opposition party, New Democracy, rejected the plan at a meeting with Papandreou and other opposition leaders in Athens, saying his party wouldn’t be blackmailed. Papandreou said he will go ahead with the measures even while continuing to seek support and ruled out early elections.
“It’s our duty to get Greece out of this crisis,” Papandreou said today on state-run NET TV. “And we will do all it takes, with or without cross-party agreement.”
European Union officials have called for consensus on the package, which includes an additional 6 billion euros ($8.6 billion) of budget cuts and a plan to speed 50 billion euros of state-asset sales, before approving more aid that Greece needs to avoid default. The wage cuts and tax increases Papandreou has imposed under a 110 billion-euro bailout last year have prompted strikes and protests, complicating efforts for compromise on the new plan.
Papandreou said the country needed “to show as much unity, decisiveness and seriousness as possible to everyone at this moment.
“It’s not the time for conventional opposition politics,” he said. “It’s not the time for glib talk.”
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