Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is facing the most intense 48 hours in his prime ministerial career. Torn between the Greek “no” to the rigorous measures, pressures from the extreme wing of SYRIZA not to accept European pressures, agreement and promise to most of the Greek political forces that an agreement that will keep the country in the Eurozone and the stringent European requirements will be achieved, Tsipras on Friday morning has to present a detailed proposal for a two-year program of measures and reforms.
According to unofficial information, during yesterday’s EU summit, Tsipras spoke with European leaders that will need to be a transitional contract of 40 days to better prepare the two-year program, which today the Greek government will seek through a request to the European rescue mechanism. Along with the requirement, a whole list with detailed proposals, reforms and commitments that Athens plans to implement a long-term order will be submitted until Friday for the European institutions to discuss and prepare for the EU Summit on Sunday.
All comments from the government side are that they are working towards a solution. There is little hope that the EU will show understanding, based on the statement of the head of the EU Council Donald Tusk, who noted that the Greek exit from the Eurozone will have a strong geopolitical implications for the Union. The information is that the Greek government sees the two-year program as a more sustainable and friendlier than previous European proposals in terms of their previous proposal of creditors provided for funding for only 5 months, in which very strict measures had to be implemented, while, with the new program, there will be more financial aid and long term for implementation of measures and reforms, and in it, if they accepted the Greek proposals, there will be solutions to tackle unemployment, long-term financial stability and talk for debt restructuring.
If Tsipras gets green light on Sunday for Greek proposals and common language is found, the Greek Parliament will have to immediately pass the measures. This step seems like a new challenge for the Greek government. There is a possibility that the potentially stringent measures will be strongly opposed by the radical wing of SYRIZA, but in the case Tsipras’ party colleagues to vote against, it is assumed that the measures will be supported by the parties that signed a joint declaration with the government, i.e. River, New Democracy and PASOK.
The newspaper “Kathimerini” reports that Tsipras spoke yesterday with President Prokopis Pavlopoulos, who had told the European Parliament in today’s speech to perform moderately in order not to cause a new problem in the negotiations. In the conversation, it was emphasized that under the agreement from the leadership meeting, agreement with the EU will certainly be supported in the Assembly, but if the vote fails, the entire responsibility will fall on Tsipras.
River leader Stavros Theodorakis underlined that the PM must do everything to reach a solution as promised to the people and the political leaders in Greece.
– The drama must be completed here. The government must submit a proposal that will keep us in the EU. Everything else would be a betrayal of the Greek people and will be interpreted as treason – said Theodorakis.
The former head of PASOK, Evangelos Venizelos, asked from Tsipras to convene a new leadership meeting immediately.
The opinions in Greece are that the government at this point can trip on the red line for debt restructuring, painful topic that EU leaders do not seem to wish to open at the moment.
