Finance Minister Says Greece Averted ‘Nightmare Scenario’
Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos says his country has avoided a “nightmare scenario” by agreeing to a 130 billion euros ($170 billion) bailout deal. View full post on Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
Finance Minister Says Greece Has Done What Lenders Wanted
Greek Finance Minister Envagelos Venizelos says his government has done what the country’s international lenders wanted it to do to secure a second bailout worth 130 billion euros ($170 million). View full post on Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
Greece says it has cleared bailout hurdles
Party leaders have met the final two demands set by the country’s international lenders, paving the way for a deal. View full post on AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)
Eurozone ministers cancel Greece debt meeting
Decision follows demands by eurozone members that country detail how it intends to cover its $428m budget gap. View full post on AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)
Greece calls for elections after debt riots
General elections announced for April, hours after parliament approved new austerity cuts and protests raged in Athens. View full post on AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)
* Greece deal uncertain as ministers quit, violence erupts
ATHENS, Greece – Greece’s future in the euro grew increasingly precarious Friday as violence erupted on the streets of Athens and four Greek ministers quit government over European demands for more austerity.
A day after Greece claimed it had reached an agreement among its squabbling party leaders on new cutbacks, European officials dashed any hopes that the country is out of danger. Finance ministers said more needs to be done and set a deadline for the middle of next week.
If Greece’s government fails to meet Europe’s demands, the debt-ridden country faces a chaotic debt default next month that would send shockwaves around the world economy and could doom a generation of Greeks to even deeper hardship.
If it does deliver those demands, Europe has committed to give it a €130 billion ($172 billion) lifeline that would at least postpone Greece’s day of reckoning.
“No disbursement without implementation,” Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg premier who also chairs the eurozone’s finance ministers’ meetings, said Thursday after they declined to fully back the deal Greek leaders had agreed.
The eurozone finance ministers want Greece to find another €325 million ($432 million) in savings and say Parliament must vote on implementing the austerity measures. Worried that Greek political leaders could later renege on the austerity promises, they also requested that the party heads commit to the measures even after general elections in April.
The fallout from the eurozone’s demands was immediate in Athens.
Thousands of protesters marched through the streets to protest cuts including a 22% reduction in the minimum wage
Resistance was also growing in Athen’s halls of power, with two deputy ministers leaving the government because they could not agree to the new demands. Deputy Agriculture Minister Asterios Rondoulis announced his resignation on Friday a day after Deputy Labor Minister Yiannis Koutsoukos, a Socialist, did the same. Two more ministers quit later in the day in Athens.
George Karatzaferis, leader of the rightist LAOS party that is backing the government coalition, said he was withdrawing support for the measures agreed a day earlier, describing the country’s treatment by its European partners as “humiliating.”
Though LAOS is a pretty small party, it’s a sign of the discontent that’s growing in a country that’s in its fifth year of recession, embroiled in seemingly-daily strikes and mired in mass unemployment — nearly one in two young people are out of work.
LAOS has 16 deputies in the 300-seat parliament in a coalition backed by 252 lawmakers, posing no direct threat to the measures that are due to be voted late Sunday and backed by the two major coalition parties, the Socialists and conservatives.
Faced with growing dissent, the Socialists and conservatives have both called emergency meetings of their parliament members following a Cabinet meeting scheduled for later in the day.
The uncertainty hit global markets, as shares on the Athens Stock Exchange plunged 4.6% and the euro sank 0.7% to $1.3180.
As well as trying to secure the bailout, it is close to concluding a related debt-relief agreement with banks that would slash €100 billion ($132 billion) from the country’s national debt.
In return, it has caved in to pressing demands to fire 15,000 civil servants in 2012, slash the minimum wage and other private sector pay.
Karatzaferis insisted it was not his intention to withdraw from the government, and urged other countries in the European Union to challenge what he described as Germany’s domination of the union.
“Of course we do not want to be outside the EU, but we can get by without being under the German jackboot,” he told a news conference. “Like all Greeks, I am very irritated … by this humiliation.”
In central Athens, clashes erupted outside Parliament, as dozens of hooded youths threw fire bombs and stones at police, who responded with tear gas. Three people were hurt, police said.
The violence broke out as thousands took to the streets of the capital after unions launched a two-day general strike against the planned austerity measures.
Police said some 7,000 people took part in the demonstration. Another 10,000 Communist supporters held a separate, peaceful march.
Scores of youths, in hoods and gas masks, used sledge hammers to smash up marble paving stones in Athens’ main Syntagma Square before hurling the rubble at riot police.
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Categories: Al Jazeera Tags: Agrees, Greece, jobs, state
Greece caves to pressure and cuts state jobs
Move to eliminate 15,000 civil service jobs signals major shift in policy in run-up to crucial coalition meeting. View full post on AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)