Samaras Says Greeks Now Have Hope

With the country’s economy still sinking, unemployment and social unrest rising and under pressure from his coalition partners and international lenders, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said he believes that he has brought Greece back from the brink of leaving the Eurozone and given Greeks reason to believe better days are ahead.
In an interview with The New York Times, the embattled Premier acknowledged the remaining difficulties, especially after a massive general strike and protests that shut down the country for 24 hours on Sept. 26 but said he has put Greece on the right track. “What I am telling you is, ‘There is hope,’ ” he said. “That is all I can offer.”
Samaras though said he can’t do it alone and that Europe must keep helping Greece. The country is surviving on $152 billion in rescue loans from the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) and awaiting the last installment of $38.8 billion.
That has been put on hold, along with a pending second bailout of $172 billion, until he pushes through more austerity measures, $14.6 billion in spending cuts and another $2.6 billion in taxes – all of which he had vowed to resist when campaigning ahead of the critical June 17 elections his New Democracy Conservatives narrowly won.
Now, with his party embroiled in a burgeoning scandal over a list of 33 politicians being investigated for sources of wealth, he has at least been able to convince his reluctant coalition partners, the fading PASOK Socialists of Evangelos Venizelos and the tiny Democratic Left led by Fotis Kouvelis, to also renege on their promises to hold the line on more austerity measures.
“Do you think anyone can be happy being prime minister of Greece?” he told the Times. “This is the toughest job in the world. It’s just pain. Despite the political cost – his party now is virtually tied with the major opposition Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) in new polls – Samaras said it was worth it. “There is absolutely zero risk that Greece is leaving the Euro,” he said.
That may be, although, not so much because of leadership but because EU leaders fear the risk of the Eurozone being tumbled if Greece defaults, and leaders in Germany, which foots much of the bailout bills, said as much when they conceded Greece will get the next bailout installment even if Samaras hasn’t gotten the new austerity package through the Parliament he controls.
Noting similar austerity protests in two other embattled EU countries, Spain and Portugal, he said, ‘This is the product of the huge crisis and this huge recession we’re in,” he said. “So that should ring a bell to our allies and to the Western world: that if this happens in Greece and in Spain and tomorrow in other countries that they should make sure this will not intensify.”
Samaras vowed there would be no more austerity measures and that fighting unemployment is his “Number One Problem,” but made no mention of tax evaders costing the country $70 billion. He repeated his hope – but once for which he hasn’t asked the Troika – that Greece could have two more years, until 2016, to impose reforms and meet fiscal targets to reduce the deficit from 9.3 to 3 percent, the Eurozone ceiling. The Troika, which is sending envoys back to Athens this week, still has to sign off on the deal he reached with Venizelos and Kouvelis, who now face a backlash in their parties.
But his message to Europe was equally clear: Without its help, his promises may ring empty. “We are changing, but at the same time you have to help us, you have to help the situation,” he said. The alternative, he added, could be “the end of Greece.”