September 19, 2011
Greece's government held an emergency cabinet meeting Sunday to plan new measures to bring its unruly budget deficit into line, after heated warnings from the other euro-zone nations over the weekend that its efforts were insufficient and might threaten the delivery of future aid.
During a late-evening break in the meeting, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos pledged that Greece would adopt a raft of new budget-cutting measures endorsed by the "troika" of European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank inspectors overseeing the country's bailout.
But there were signs of swelling exasperation, and with it a larger risk that Greece could descend into a messy debt default. Mr. Venizelos said Greece was being "threatened and humiliated" by the troika's continued demands for cuts, which include mass firings of public workers.
In a fiery statement released after the meeting, Mr. Venizelos lashed out at his political opponents—but also, unusually, at the euro-zone countries that are funding Greece and administering its bailout. "We should not be the scapegoat or the easy excuse that will be used by European and international institutions in order to hide their own lack of competence to manage the crisis," he said.
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