By RACHEL DONADIO and NIKI KITSANTONIS
February 9, 2012
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| Photo: Reuters |
ATHENS — After days of dramatic talks, Greek political leaders reached a
deal on Thursday to support a package of harsh austerity measures
demanded by Greece’s financial backers in return for the country’s
latest bailout.
George Papandreou, the former prime minister and
current leader of the socialist party, left Prime Minister Lucas
Papademos's office on Thursday after a meeting with the leaders of the
three parties supporting his coalition government in Athens.
The deal is expected to unlock the 130 billion euros, or $172 billion,
in new loans and save Greece from potentially disastrous default.
Talks between Prime Minister Lucas D. Papademos
and the three leaders backing his coalition had stalled overnight over
proposed cuts to pensions, but on Thursday leaders said they had found a
way of plugging the 300 million euro shortfall by cutting defense
spending and other expenditures.
“We have a deal,” a government official said Thursday afternoon. A statement by the prime minister was expected shortly.
At a news conference in Frankfurt, the head of the European Central
Bank, Mario Draghi, said Mr. Papademos had called him with word that “an
agreement has been reached and has been endorsed by the major parties”
in Greece.
After more than seven hours, talks had stalled early Thursday between
Mr. Papademos and the three political leaders in his government, who
agreed on a range of steep wage cuts and public sector layoffs. But the
politically unpopular pension cuts had proven most thorny.
Once the deal is finalized and the measures are approved by the Greek
Parliament in the coming days, the lenders are expected to begin
releasing to Greece the aid it needs to prevent a default when its next
debt payment comes due on March 20.
The deal is also expected to pave the way for a bond swap under which
private investors would take losses of as much as 70 percent — a deal
that must be completed well before the debt comes due.
Mr. Draghi declined to comment on how Greek bonds held by the E.C.B. and
national central banks would be affected under the terms of the swap,
Reuters reported.
A Greek parliamentary vote on the full package of measures was scheduled for Sunday.
Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos of Greece was to brief his counterparts in Brussels later Thursday.
Before leaving Athens, Mr. Venizelos had appealed to the political
leaders for the umpteenth time, saying that their decisions “will
determine whether the country remains in the euro zone or whether its
place in Europe will be endangered.”
Even then, the line between Greek political theater and international
financial trauma was difficult to discern. And after weeks of delays and
threats from both sides — many of them empty — it was clear that the
credibility of both Greece and its lenders was on the line.
The country’s two main labor unions called for a strike Friday and
Saturday to protest the new proposed package of austerity measures.
Union leaders said protest rallies would be held outside Parliament on
both days of the strike and on Sunday during the vote.
After breaking talks with Mr. Papademos and issuing statements, the
three political leaders had retired to their homes for the night about 2
a.m.
A little while earlier, while Mr. Papademos was holding talks with
Greece’s foreign lenders, one of the three leaders participating in the
government, George Karatzaferis, the leader of the Popular Orthodox
Rally, issued a statement saying that he was unwilling to agree to the
terms of the new bailout and indicating that he might withdraw from the
government.
That would leave the burden of accepting the austerity measures on the
other two parties in the coalition, the Socialists and the center-right
New Democracy party.
The government official who confirmed the deal said that Mr. Papademos
had communicated with Mr. Samaras, and that they had agreed on how to
make up the shortfall. Local media said Mr. Papademos had not spoken
with Mr. Karatzaferis.
Although Greece’s so-called troika of foreign lenders — the European
Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary
Fund — have indicated that they will ask for written agreements from the
party leaders that they will support the loan agreement, the government
is still expected to be able to approve the agreement without Mr.
Karatzaferis’s party.
Even if he does pull out of the coalition, the government will have a
majority in Parliament, where the Popular Orthodox Rally has only 16 of
the coalition’s 252 seats. With elections expected as soon as April, the
parties are fighting for political survival.
The leaders appear to have agreed to one of the most unpopular austerity
measures, a 22 percent reduction in the minimum wage, to 586 euros a
month, according to an earlier statement by the prime minister’s office.
That cut is expected to affect all salaried workers, because the base wage is used as a benchmark by employers.
But the leader of New Democracy, Antonis Samaras, said the talks had
foundered over cuts to pensions. Mr. Karatzaferis, whose populist,
hard-right former opposition party has been losing ground with voters
since it joined the government, said he would support Mr. Samaras to
prevent proposed cuts to supplementary pensions..
Analysts suggested that the coalition partners were seeking to avoid
blame for the agreement in hopes of leaving Mr. Papademos as the
principal target of public anger.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg, who heads a group
of euro zone finance ministers, had scheduled a ministerial meeting for
Thursday that he had previously said he would call only if Athens were
ready to sign off on the plan.
Even that meeting would not be the final word. But it would allow for
preparations for a bond swap under which private investors would take
losses of as much as 70 percent, according to one person briefed on
discussions who agreed to describe them only if the person were not
identified.
Some details of the bailout remained unclear, but it appeared
increasingly likely that the European Central Bank would agree to forgo
at least some of its potential profits on Greek bonds, once the
government in Athens had agreed to the austerity measures.
The first installment of the bailout was supposed to be an 89 billion
euro segment in March, but officials are now saying that payment might
be limited to about 30 billion euros to ensure that Greece continues to
abide by the terms in coming months.
Landon Thomas Jr. contributed reporting from London.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:Correction: February 9, 2012
An earlier version of this article misstated the amount in pension cuts that is being sought by Greece’s foreign lenders. Greece is expected to find €300 million in pension cuts, not €300 billion.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/business/global/greece-austerity-talks-hit-wall.html
Διαβάστε επίσης εδώ:
Greek austerity and reform measures: factbox
Greek leaders failed to sign off on a tough reform and austerity programme on Wednesday night. Here are some details of what has been agreed by the party chiefs and officials of the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
Taxes and spending
• Greek leaders have agreed to spending cuts worth 1.5pc of gross
domestic product (GDP) this year, or €3.3bn (£2.77bn). By Thursday morning,
savings had been agreed to cover all but €300m of that amount.
• The cuts include €400m from public investment, €300m from the
defence budget and €300m from pensions.
• In June, whichever government is in charge following expected
elections will have to specify additional austerity measures worth €10bn for
2013-2015.
• Greece will be given an extra year, until the end of 2015, to
meet a primary surplus target (excluding interest payments).
Bank recapitalisations
• Banks with major problems will be recapitalised with common voting shares while those with lesser problems will be recapitalised with bonds convertible into shares with restricted voting rights.Labour reform
• The minimum wage will be cut by 22pc. However, this will not drag down the entire wage scale, applying only to new hires. New entrants into the labour market, i.e. those getting their first job, will receive a sub-minimum wage 30pc below the current minimum wage, which now stands at about €750. Those under 25 will be affected the most.• About 15,000 state workers will be placed in a "labour reserve", meaning they will be placed on partial pay and dismissed after a year.
• The government aims to cut the state sector workforce by about 150,000 people by 2015.
Source: Reuters
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9070991/Greek-austerity-and-reform-measures-factbox.html
