July 5, 2011
The international plan to fix Greece's finances is failing and needs a rethink, the head of Greece's main opposition party said in an interview.
Instead of strangling the Greek economy with tax increases, Europe and the International Monetary Fund should let Greece cut taxes to jump-start growth, said Antonis Samaras, leader of the center-right New Democracy party and possibly the country's next prime minister.
The austerity program for Greece "is a failure," Mr. Samaras said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, his first with international media since becoming Greece's opposition leader. Citing Greece's poor tax revenues amid a worsening recession, he said: "I think our lenders will have to change their policy. My question is why do we have to go further down the drain in the meantime?"
That view has isolated him internationally. But in Greece, Mr. Samaras's party is pulling ahead of the country's embattled Socialist government in opinion polls. Many political analysts in Athens say the government might not see out its full term to 2013, and some predict new elections as early as this autumn. That raises the prospect that Europe and the IMF might soon have to deal with Mr. Samaras, an economist known to be unbending and self-confident. A political clash over Greek budget policies could derail the country's bailout.
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