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Alexis Tsipras grounded by dissent from within Syriza by Kerin Hope in Athens Financial Times, June 4 [full text] <http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e01061d4-0ad8-11e5-9df4-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3c7SzWJYZ> After four hours of discussions with EU leaders in Brussels on Wednesday night, Alexis Tsipras was planning to return on Friday in hopes of at last sealing a bailout deal with creditors. But the Greek prime minister has been grounded by a torrent of anger and resistance from his Syriza party. Instead of flying to Brussels, he will on Friday be appealing to a restive parliament in Athens with his government — and the country’s financial future — on the line. “The overwhelming sentiment in the [Syriza] parliamentary group will be one of rejection,” Antonis Kamaras, a Greek political commentator, said of the bailout terms being offered by creditors. “It’s hard to see how the leadership can prevail.” Mr Tsipras had called Wednesday’s talks “constructive and friendly.” But a senior Greek official said the International Monetary Fund, which was not represented at the meeting, had imposed new conditions that had not been tackled in earlier negotiations in Brussels. Back in Athens, Mr Tsipras later told aides: “Extreme proposals are not acceptable to the Greek government. We must all understand how much people have suffered in the last five years and games must stop being played at their expense.” With members of Syriza’s far-left faction already stridently denouncing the creditors, the party could face a split if the premier crosses his self-imposed “red lines” on pensions and taxes in order to strike a deal with bailout monitors. Sitting in a cramped office at party headquarters, Alecos Kalyvas, Syriza’s economic strategy chief, captured the mood of the party’s mainstream. Greece faced big problems and “time was running out”, he said, but he “cannot accept” more pensions reductions, energy price rises and public sector job cuts. Asked if a deal would be reached before the current bailout extension runs out at the end of June, Mr Kalyvas responded: “I’m optimistic but only moderately.” In the meantime, Greeks continue to withdraw cash from local banks amid fears that capital controls may be imposed if the negotiations run into problems, or if Athens is unable to pay a series of four loan instalments totalling €1.5bn to the IMF this month. Last week depositors pulled more than €2bn out of their accounts, according to two senior bankers. The outflows resumed this week but in smaller amounts, they said. Even though Greece’s central bank made clear on Thursday evening that the cash-strapped government will not make a €300m payment to the IMF due on Friday, Athens does have the cash to cover that bill — as well as another €350m instalment due on June 12, according to Greek officials with knowledge of the national accountants. One such official said the government had enough money to cover its full €1.5bn in obligations to the IMF this month — raising the prospect that the latest moves were a form of posturing by Mr Tsipras to impress his party. Before Mr Tsipras flew back from Brussels, members of Syriza’s extreme left faction urged him to call an immediate general election if the talks resulted in an ultimatum from bailout monitors. John Milios, the party’s previous economic strategy chief and leader of a new far-left faction, the Red Network, called for Greece to halt payments to the IMF and impose capital controls. “We’re at a critical point, and I don’t know if there will be an agreement. The government is on a slippery slope . . . and what I see ahead is blackmail,” Mr Milios told a meeting of his supporters. Panayotis Lafazanis, the hardline energy minister and official leader of the Left Platform, insisted that electricity prices would remain unchanged and that impoverished households would continue to be supplied with free electricity. “This agreement isn’t in compliance with Syriza’s progressive platform and it’s not going to happen,” Mr Lafazanis said. “We’re a government of principle and we won’t be responsible for doing such great damage to the country.” Greece refuses to make €305m IMF payment in show of defiance by Szu Ping Chan The Telegraph, June 4 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11652623/Greece-refuses-to-make-305m-payment-due-tomorrow-to-IMF.html Greece will miss its €305m (£218m) payment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday in a show of defiance as a deal between Athens and its creditors remains out of reach. The country invoked a rule created by the IMF in the 1970s that allows it to bundle all of its €1.6bn payments due this month into one. In a statement, Gerry Rice, the IMF's chief spokesman, said: “The Greek authorities have informed the Fund today that they plan to bundle the country’s four June payments into one, which is now due on June 30. “Under an Executive Board decision adopted in the late 1970s, country members can ask to bundle together multiple principal payments falling due in a calendar month (payments of interest cannot be included in the bundle). The decision was intended to address the administrative difficulty of making multiple payments in a short period." The last request made to the IMF to bundle payments was Zambia in the mid 1980s. Greece will now choose whether to delay three further payments of €312m due on June 12, €573m on June 16 and €343m on June 19. It also has to pay €1.5bn in public sector pensions and wages on June 30. The Greek finance ministry, which is led by Yanis Varoufakis, said in a statement: "After four months of negotiations, creditor institutions submitted proposals which can’t solve the riddle of the economic crisis caused by the policies implemented in the last five years." The move to delay repayment is likely to have come as a surprise to the Fund. Hours before the announcement, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, described payment bundling by Greece as not on the cards. Ms Lagarde said she was confident that Greece would honour its repayment promises. Late night talks in Brussels on Wednesday night failed to break the deadlock between the two sides. Athens vowed on Thursday never to "surrender" to its European creditors, describing a series of demands needed to unlock a €7.2bn aid tranche, as unacceptable. Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, told reporters that Greece's plan formed the only "realistic proposals on the table'. NOTE THIS REPORT FROM WED. JUNE 3 Greece will not pay IMF without prospect of a deal, says SYRIZA MP I Kathimerini, Athens, June 3 (Reuters) <http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_03/06/2015_550618> Greece will not make a June 5 loan repayment to the International Monetary Fund if there is no prospect of an aid-for-reforms deal with its international creditors soon, the spokesman for the ruling Syriza party's lawmakers said on Wednesday. "If there is no prospect of a deal by Friday or Monday, I don't know by when exactly, we will not pay," Nikos Filis told Mega TV. The June 5 payment of 300 million euros is the first of four this month totalling 1.6 billion euros. Athens depends on foreign aid to stay afloat. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will travel to Brussels on Wednesday for a meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker as Athens and its lenders seek to agree on a deal that will unlock remaining bailout funds. Creditors' offer prompts anger, dismay in Greece by Karolina Tagaris & Deepa Babington I Kathimerini, Athens, June 4 (Reuters) <http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_04/06/2015_550672> Lawmakers from Greece's ruling SYRIZA party reacted with dismay and fury on Thursday to a package of reforms creditors offered Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in return for cash, with one senior party official calling it a "murderous" proposal. The starkly negative reaction points to a growing risk of a rift or outright revolt within the radical leftist party, which could prompt Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to resort to early elections to overcome divisions and win acceptance for a deal. Avgi, the SYRIZA party newspaper headlined its Thursday edition: "A continuation of austerity? No, thanks!", while the top-selling daily Ta Nea splashed: "Death toll required for an agreement." Full details of the plan drawn up by European and IMF creditors have yet to emerge after European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker outlined it to Tsipras at late-night talks in Brussels. But partial details that have leaked so far showed demands for pension cuts and tax hikes that Tsipras's government would struggle to implement. "(Juncker) took on the dirty work and conveyed the most vulgar, most murderous, toughest plan when everyone hoped that the deal was closing," Alexis Mitropoulos, a deputy parliament speaker and senior official within Syriza told Mega TV. "And that at a time when we were finally moving towards an agreement we all want because we rule out a rift leading to tragedy." Lawmakers were incensed in particular by a proposal to scrap a benefit for low-income pensioners and a value-added tax change that Tsipras said would raise the value added tax on electricity by 10 percentage points. Such measures are anathema to SYRIZA, which in January became the first radical leftist party to assume power in modern Greek history on a pledge to end austerity and raise living standards for Greeks battered by five years of hardship. No surrender A minority far-left faction within the party has made its anger at the negotiations clear in recent weeks, prompting speculation of an open rift that breaks the party up. Syriza's policy-making central committee rejected a motion by that faction to halt repayments to the IMF as part of the negotiations by the relatively narrow margin of 95 to 75 after a fierce debate last month. "What appears to have been discussed and to have been proposed by Mr Juncker during his meeting with the Greek prime minister is beneath (our) expectations in every way," Deputy Shipping Minister Thodoris Dritsas told Greek television. "If reports are confirmed, obviously we cannot accept them." He repeated an oft-repeated Syriza mantra that Greece would not bow to terms that the party deemed humiliating. "If our lenders want full surrender, they won't have it," said Dritsas, an outspoken opponent of privatisations demanded by the lenders. The angry reactions piled growing pressure on Tsipras, who has to balance efforts to keep his party together with the simultaneous need to seal a deal with creditors to get aid flowing into Greek state coffers before cash runs out. Athens has been tottering close to bankruptcy for weeks, and worries about the country's fate have prompted Greeks to withdraw money from banks and sent a ravaged economy back into a recession. In a sign of the limited options facing the government, one Syriza official said any deal with lenders would win approval by the party's lawmakers after both sides made concessions. "I believe that when it arrives, it will be approved by parliament," Dimitris Papadimoulis, a SYRIZA member of European parliament, told Greek television. "I don't see any high-ranking SYRIZA member wanting to pull the carpet from under Tsipras' feet." Greek PM To Resume Talks With Creditors[, Meeting with] Hellenic Parliament by Katerina Papathanasiou The Greek Reporter, June 4 <http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/06/04/greek-pm-to-resume-talks-with-creditors-in-hellenic-parliament> Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will hold a Parliament representatives meeting on Friday at 6 pm local time in order to resume talks with international creditors regarding the Greek government’s agonizing efforts to reach an agreement that will release €7.2bn in financial aid. Returning to Athens on Thursday, Greece’s Prime Minister launched a series of meetings with the government’s economic team and ministers, after Wednesday night’s meeting between him and President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels failed to achieve a breakthrough. The meetings started at 3 pm with Alternate Foreign Minister for International Economic Relations Euclid Tsakalotos and Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who were joined about an hour later by government Vice-President Yiannis Dragasakis. According to unknown sources, Alexis Tsipras may meet with the Political Secretariat of Syriza in order to inform all its members about government’s latest achievements. Furthermore, an EU official said on Thursday that Tsipras could visit Brussels again to attend further negotiations with senior EU officials about a potential debt deal as early as Friday night. European Commission Confirms Follow-up Meeting Between Greek PM and Juncker by A. Makris The Greek Reporter, June 4 <http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/06/04/european-commission-confirms-follow-up-meeting-between-greek-pm-and-juncker> European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas on Thursday confirmed that there will be a follow-up meeting between Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in the coming days. The spokesman said he was unable to confirm a precise date for the next meeting between Tsipras and Juncker but could say that it will take place. He indicated that the participants in the next meeting would likely be the same as in the meeting on Wednesday night. He also noted that many of the various leaks concerning the contents of the proposal to Greece from the institutions belonged in the sphere of rumour. Schinas said that one needed to look at the overall picture and the essential issues, which were none other than certain gaps that remain and must be bridged through negotiations. Juncker remains in constant communication with all the political officials involved in the negotiation in order to find a solution, he added. Eurozone sources, in statements after the Tsipras-Juncker meeting, said they were optimistic that a staff level agreement between Greece and the institutions “was just days away.” _________________________________________________________ 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
