Financial Times
February 1, 2012
The leader of the rightwing Laos party, junior partner in the Greek coalition government, has appealed to the European Union to ease the terms of the country’s second €130bn bail-out, or risk triggering a “social explosion”.
The passionate plea from George Karatzaferis came as Greek officials are scrambling to meet a deadline on Friday to restructure €200bn of debt controlled by private bondholders, an essential condition for the next rescue plan.
Mr Karatzaferis’s warning raises doubts about whether he will sign up to the deal, although EU negotiators insist that all the main political parties in Athens must do so – in writing – before the next phase of the Greek rescue can be finalised.
While Laos (People’s party) has only 16 seats in the Greek parliament, its anti-European line is echoed by lawmakers in Pasok, the socialist party that lost power in November but is now part of the three-party coalition headed by Lucas Papademos, Greece’s technocrat prime minister. Antonis Samaras, the conservative leader, has also warned that Greece cannot take more austerity.
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