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European Leaders Assemble for Urgent Meeting on Greek Crisis by Liz Alderman, Niki Kitsantonis and Jack Ewing New York Times, June 1 <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/02/business/international/urgently-assembled-meeting-for-leaders-in-greek-crisis.html> ATHENS — As the Greek government faces a looming debt payment, top European leaders met in Berlin on Monday night to reach a consensus over what to do about Greece, signaling the urgent need to unlock emergency financing for the cash-starved country and avoid a devastating default. But a growing political backlash in Greece adds to the uncertainty about whether a deal can be sealed. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras faces increasing dissent within his leftist Syriza party over creditors’ demands for austerity terms as a condition for releasing the aid. Greece’s main creditors — the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and eurozone countries — have refused to release 7.2 billion euros in bailout funds until Athens agrees to a series of economic reforms and spending cuts. They have been at an impasse for months. But the unexpected gathering of top representatives of the creditors is an urgent bid to move the talks forward. The assembly included Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany; President François Hollande of France; Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission; Christine Lagarde, the I.M.F. managing director; and Mario Draghi, president of the E.C.B. The leaders discussed how Greece could meet its obligations in June but also make a series of large payments during the summer, said a person with knowledge of the discussions. An extension of the current aid program is one option. The creditors did not comment publicly on the meeting. Ms. Merkel and the other leaders will avoid presenting anything to Greece that looks like an ultimatum, the person said. But they are likely to formulate what will amount to a last, best offer, with limited scope for negotiation. They may also present Greece with a deadline to provide an answer, though it was not certain when the deadline would be, the person said. Unless they strike an agreement soon, Greece may not be able to make a series of coming debt payments. On Friday, Greece must make a €300 million loan repayment to the International Monetary Fund, and it owes €1.2 billion later this month. Should a deal be signed this week and the cash made available, Greece should be able to survive financially through the summer, according to people involved in the discussions, who were not authorized to speak publicly. But Mr. Tsipras would still face an even steeper political challenge at home when its current €240 billion bailout deal expires at the end of this month. Because Greece owes tens of billions of euros more to its creditors, Athens will probably need to consider applying for a third bailout package, estimated at €30 billion to €50 billion, in the fall. Any new aid would most likely be conditioned on further budget-cutting and revenue-raising requirements that Syriza might find hard to accept. Far-left Syriza lawmakers have become increasingly agitated recently, accusing Mr. Tsipras of making too many compromises on the anti-austerity pledges that helped sweep the party to power in January’s elections. A new political uproar broke when a group of Syriza lawmakers refused to back the government’s nominee for a new representative at the International Monetary Fund, Elena Panaritis, a former Greek parliamentarian who once worked at the World Bank. In a letter on Sunday, more than 40 Syriza members, mostly lawmakers, took issue with her support of Greece’s last international bailout agreement in 2012, which the party considered to have been unfair and overly harsh. Ms. Panaritis withdrew from consideration on Monday, citing the opposition. Although symbolic, it was the latest in a series of uprisings within Syriza, which during the election campaign had promised to take a hard line with Greece’s creditors in debt negotiations and to resist austerity measures. A hard-left faction recently pressed for but lost an internal central committee party vote to have Athens stop paying its creditors altogether if they demanded further austerity. Mr. Tsipras is facing an array of pressures as critics from both the left and right in the Greek government question whether he has a viable plan to restart the economy, which slid back into a recession in the first quarter. At the same time, Greece’s creditors, the I.M.F. in particular, have resisted unlocking any aid unless the government can show that it will put its finances on a sound footing and run enough of an operating surplus to make regular debt payments. The dispute over Ms. Panaritis on Monday “shows that there’s a lot of exasperation in Syriza ahead of a deal with creditors,” said Harry Papasotiriou, a professor of political science at the Panteion University in Athens and the head of the Institute of International Relations. Even if dissent within Syriza deepens, the government would probably band together to push through any legislation needed to secure the bailout funds. Few lawmakers want to precipitate a default or force Greece to exit the currency union. But the hard-liners of Mr. Tsipras’s party could eventually break away, analysts said, especially the Left Platform, a faction that has already pushed for Greece to stop paying its creditors if they continue with “blackmailing tactics.” Negotiations over the current bailout have been dragging on since February, as Mr. Tsipras has resisted measures that he said would worsen hardship for the Greek people, including heavier pension cuts and an increased consumption tax. Despite rumors on Monday that an “interim deal” aimed at securing crucial loans to Greece was imminent, European officials indicated that there was still some way to go before an agreement could be sealed. “Progress has been made but we are not yet there,” Mina Andreeva, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, said Monday. In a bid to placate his domestic audience, Mr. Tsipras lashed out at the slowness of the talks in an op-ed piece in the French daily newspaper Le Monde that was published over the weekend. He put the onus for an agreement on Greece’s creditors and blamed the lack of an deal on their insistence on “absurd proposals” and a “total indifference” to the anti-austerity mandate that he said the nation handed him in January. The talks have stuck on several points. Both sides have varying forecasts for the country’s primary budget surplus, which is the amount of money the government can draw on to make debt payments after meeting its operating expenses. Greece wants to limit budget cuts and set the primary surplus below 1 percent, compared with an original target of 3 percent for this year. Opinions also differ on how the value-added tax system should be changed to lift revenue. Overhauling the pension system and labor laws remain contentious issues; Mr. Tsipras indicated in the op-ed that Greece already had made concessions in those areas. In the meantime, Greece’s finances continue to deteriorate as deepening political uncertainty accelerates a decline in tax receipts and withdrawals of deposits from the nation’s banks. Last week, Greece’s central bank reported that deposits fell in April to €133 billion, the lowest level in a decade, after savers withdrew nearly €5 billion from the banks during the month. More than €30 billion was withdrawn between the end of last November and the end of April, according to the Bank of Greece. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Liz Alderman and Niki Kitsantonis reported from Athens, and Jack Ewing from Frankfurt. Landon Thomas contributed reporting from New York, Alison Smale from Berlin and James Kanter from Brussels. A version of this article appears in print on June 2, 2015(New York edition) with the headline: Urgently Assembled Meeting For Leaders in Greek Crisis Greece's IMF appointee steps down after ruling party backlash Reuters June 1 (Reporting by George Georgiopoulos and Lefteris Papadimas; Editing by Gareth Jones) <http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/01/us-eurozone-greece-imf-idUSKBN0OH2F720150601> ATHENS - The Greek government's choice to become its new representative at the International Monetary Fund said on Monday she would not take up the job following a backlash within the ruling leftist Syriza party. Elena Panaritis, a member of Greece's financial crisis negotiating team, is viewed as close to Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and her decision to step aside highlights tensions in the Syriza camp as it tries to seal a critical cash-for-reforms deal with its IMF and euro zone creditors. In a letter sent to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Sunday, some 40 deputies from his anti-bailout party opposed her appointment and asked for it to be withdrawn, saying her views conflicted with Syriza's program. Panaritis served as a parliamentary deputy for the centre-left PASOK party from 2009 to 2012 and had previously backed Greece's bailout program, which has imposed deep spending cuts and tax increases on Greeks that Syriza wants to end. "As I never asked for this position and given that I accepted it solely to help the government with my experience on how the IMF works, it is impossible for me to accept the appointment amid negative reactions by Syriza lawmakers," Panaritis said in a statement. The criticism of her appointment was seen as an indirect attack on the outspoken Varoufakis -- who heads the committee that picked Panaritis -- sparking a new round of speculation about his fate. A government official said her appointment had been the result of a collective decision and not one imposed by Varoufakis. With Greece facing default or bankruptcy within weeks without a new funding deal, Panaritis said she would continue to support the government in the negotiations with its lenders until Athens is set free from its bailout "shackles". Tsipras drops envoy to IMF amid pressure from Syriza hardliners by Kerin Hope Financial Times, June 1 [full text] <http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ddae6f98-086d-11e5-b38c-00144feabdc0.html> Alexis Tsipras has cancelled the appointment of a controversial Athens economist as the country’s representative to the International Monetary Fund following pressure from hardline MPs in his increasingly restive Syriza party. The Greek prime minister’s decision on Elena Panaritis, a former Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok ) MP, social entrepreneur and World Bank analyst, signalled a heightening of political tension after Athens missed Sunday’s self-imposed deadline for a bailout agreement amid reports of creditors pushing for cuts in pensions and sharp rises in value-added tax, both rejected earlier by Mr Tsipras as “red lines” for the government. If Greece fails to wrap up a deal this week to unlock €7.2bn of aid, it could run out of time to legislate and implement reforms before the bailout expires at the end of the month. In an article published in Le Monde on Monday, the premier claimed the EU and IMF had shrugged off substantial concessions made by Greek negotiators. More than 40 Syriza lawmakers signed an open letter at the weekend demanding the immediate withdrawal of Ms Panaritis on the grounds she was not qualified to represent an anti-austerity government at the IMF. “Her political background is completely at odds with the values, perceptions and policies which Syriza represents . . . This a wrong decision,” the letter said. As a Pasok lawmaker, Ms Panaritis voted for a series of austerity packages legislated during Greece’s first bailout in 2010. This meant she “cannot express the positions of the present government”, it added. Ms Panaritis stood down on Monday, saying she had not sought the IMF job. She is expected to remain an adviser to Yanis Varoufakis, the finance minister, who backed her for the IMF post despite objections from Euclid Tskalotos, a deputy finance minister and chief bailout negotiator, and lukewarm support from other senior officials. It was the first time since Syriza came to power at elections in January that its MPs have so openly opposed a government decision, suggesting that lawmakers and party officials are worried that Mr Tsipras may accept a new austerity package in order to avoid a default on €1.2bn of IMF loan repayments due by the end of this month.. Ms Panaritis’s withdrawal also marked a fresh setback for the combative Mr Varoufakis even though the prime minister’s office said in a statement the appointment was “a collective decision” by senior ministry officials. The IMF post became vacant in April when Thanos Katsambas, the incumbent, resigned unexpectedly after Mr Varoufakis breached protocol by arranging a meeting with Christine Lagarde, the managing director, without first consulting him. Ms Panaritis first incurred criticism from Syriza officials while working as a member of the bailout negotiating team. She was sidelined from the talks in March after leaking that creditors suggested the government should tackle a growing liquidity crisis by halting payments of pension and public sector salaries “for one or two months”. Mr Varoufakis was dropped as chief negotiator in April following pressure from the European Commission and IMF but still participates in discussion in Athens on the government’s negotiating strategy. Panaritis appointed Greece's IMF representative amid SYRIZA complaints I Kathimerini, Athens, May 30 <http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_30/05/2015_550545> The appointment of economist Elena Panaritis as Greece’s new representative at the International Monetary Fund has prompted criticism from within SYRIZA, as well as from opposition parties. The Finance Ministry announced on Friday evening that Panaritis, who has worked at the World Bank in the past, would be replacing Greece’s current representative Thanos Katsambas. Sources said that Alternate Foreign Minister Euclid Tsakalotos opposed the appointment, Deputy Prime Minister Yiannis Dragasakis was neutral but that Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and Development Minister Giorgos Stathakis backed the proposal. Panaritis was a PASOK MP between 2009 and 2012. Over the last few months, she has been an adviser to Varoufakis and has been involved in Greece’s negotiations with lenders. Her appointment failed to impress a number of SYRIZA officials. MEP Dimitris Papadimoulis called on Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to rethink the government’s choice, while MP Sofia Sakorafa said that the decision to appoint the ex-PASOK lawmaker went “beyond the limit.” PASOK accused Panaritis of being a "political opportunist." _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
