Greek PM between rock and hard place as clock ticks on deal
Date
6/7/2015 12:59:10 AM
(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is facing a showdown both with international creditors and dissenters in his party as his government toils to reach a default-saving loan deal in less than a month.
Athens this week opted to bundle four IMF loan payments into a single one due by the end of June, giving the 40-year-old premier just weeks to reach an agreement with creditors that sceptics in his hard-left party could accept.
Greece and its international creditors have wrangled for weeks as they try to hammer out a reform plan that would unlock the final 7.2 billion Euros ($8 billion) in bailout funds for Athens.
Late on Friday Tsipras rebuffed creditor proposals as "absurd" in a bid to galvanise support at home, but it was unclear whether the message has won over the hardliners in his radical Syriza party.
The outburst was coldly received in some European circles, with one source saying it was tantamount to Tsipras "spitting in the soup."
"There is a feeling of fatigue and disappointment among the creditors," the European source told AFP, noting that the Greek PM's tone was "very aggressive".
Athens this week withheld a 300-million-euro loan repayment to the International Monetary Fund, opting instead to group four scheduled tranches into a single payment at the end of the month.
This means that Greece must now find 1.6 billion Euros in three weeks - funds it is unlikely to muster without a deal with its EU-IMF creditors.
This, in turn, is unlikely given the creditor demands, said Greek Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, the ruling party's top EU sceptic.
"It is obvious that given their demands, there can be no convergence between our government and the institutions," Lafazanis, who is believed to influence a third of the party, told The Telegraph.
"The ball is now in their court," government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis wrote in Efimerida ton Syntakton daily.
"We will insist on dialogue, but we will not accept ultimate," he said.
Many within Syriza, including a number of cabinet members, say the PM should even call early elections rather than accept further austerity measures.
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