Brussels, 20/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - Criticised for interfering in the Greek elections, the European leaders have been pointing out the catches in the election promises of the party Syriza, which could win the ballot on Sunday 25 January.
For several days now, the Europeans have been warning that any new Greek government would not be able to shrug off the commitments taken over the last two years by the outgoing Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras, although so far, it is also been stressed that Syriza's lead over New Democracy was not a long way from the margin for error.
In many ways, the IMF's entry into the debate, on Monday, was even more remarkable. In an interview with the Irish Times, the Director General of the Washington-based institution, Christine Lagarde, said that “a debt is a debt and it is a contract”, as welcome as collective endeavours are. Syriza is proposing a European debt conference. “Defaulting, restructuring, changing the terms (of the debt) has consequences on the signature and the confidence in the signature”, Lagarde stressed. In its last monitoring report but one, however, the IMF stated that “should debt sustainability concerns prove to be weighing on investor sentiments, even within the framework for debt relief now in place, European partners should consider providing relief that would entail a faster reduction in debt than currently programmed”. Its latest monitoring report explained that the sustainability of the debt “remains a serious concern”.
Yannis Dragasakis, who could become finance minister under a Syriza government, told AFP in an interview that the possibility of economic recovery was “limited” due to the size of the Greek debt. In an interview with La Tribune, Yanis Varoufakis, a Syriza party candidate, referred to “a formula for the repayment of the debt to depend on the evolution of nominal GDP”, rather than a clean cut. He added that the second pillar of Syriza's working programme would be reforms, but not “surgery with a butcher's knife”, as he described Antonis Samaras' approach.
Despite warnings from the euro area over the need to push on with reforms and the party's poor appetite for taking action over the debt, Syriza has the wind in its sails. Alexis Tsipras' party has narrowed the gap with that of Antonis Samaras, with some opinion polls predicting a five-point lead over New Democracy, compared to 3 points last week. The party Pasok, currently in government with Antonis Samaras, has not ruled out the possibility of joining Syriza to form a government. “Mr Tsipras is like Harry Potter, but we will cooperate with them if we have to”, the leader of Pasok, Evangelos Venizelos said in an interview with La Stampa.
The possibility of a third bailout plan is believed to have been put back on the table of the eurozone, with certain countries expressing concern that the 'ECCL' precautionary credit line may prove insufficient, according to the Wall Street Journal. (EL)