Greek leftist insists on canceling bailout
ATHENS, Greece – Greece’s bailout conditions are so catastrophic for the country they must be rejected, the radical left-wing party leader who has a strong chance of winning the country’s critical election this weekend insisted yesterday.
Alexis Tsipras, whose Syriza party came in a surprise second in the inconclusive May 6 election, said he will keep his pledge to tear up Greece’s bailout deal with international creditors, saying the austerity the country has been forced to impose in return for billions of euros in rescue loans was leading Greece toward collapse.
If Athens reneges on its pledges to impose more cutbacks and reform its economy, the other European countries and International Monetary Fund who have extended it billions of euros in rescue loans could pull the plug on the funding, forcing Greece out of Europe’s joint euro currency.
But Tsipras, 37, said he hoped to convince European leaders that such a scenario would pose a danger to the continued existence of the 17-nation joint currency itself.
“If one of the 17 countries is brought to collapse … the fire will become unquenchable and will not be limited to Greece and the southern countries … it will break up the eurozone and that will not be in anybody’s interests,” he said during a news conference.
Burdened by a massive debt and a huge budget deficit, Greece has been dependent on the EU-IMF rescue loans since May 2010, when it became locked out of the international bond market by sky-high interest rates. The country is in its fifth year of recession, taxes have increased and unemployment has soared to nearly 22 per cent, prompting frequent and often violent strikes and protests.
The bailout agreement — under which Greece has had to slash spending, cut salaries and pensions, raise taxes and pledge to fire tens of thousands of civil servants — will be replaced with a “national reconstruction program,” he said.
Tsipras pledged not to carry out any across-the-board spending cuts or sackings in the civil service.