May 27, 2011
A crisis meeting of Greece’s political leaders called by the country’s president on Friday seemed to fall short of securing a broad consensus on new austerity measures aimed at showing foreign creditors that the country was serious about repairing its finances.
But Prime Minister George Papandreou, speaking to the nation in a televised speech Friday, indicated that there was still scope for an agreement to be reached.
“Essentially, there are many points on which we can agree,” he said. “But there is a need for political will from all sides.”
“Over the next few days we will continue efforts to reach a consensus,” he continued, adding that “the government has assumed the responsibility to extract the country from the crisis and will do this with or without consensus.”
The aim of the meeting Friday had been to convince officials of the European Union and International Monetary Fund that Greece had the political will to impose more tax increases and spending cuts on a public already weary after a year of belt-tightening.
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