Greeks are nearly evenly divided how they feel about their government’s hands-off stance about Cyprus’ financial crisis but an overwhelming number want their country to stay in the Eurozone, an opinion survey has found.
Some 52.3 percent of respondents in the survey conducted by the polling firm Kappa Research for Sunday’s Greek daily To Vima criticized the position of Athens during the latest developments as Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who has to negotiate tough reforms with the same lenders going after Cyprus, kept his distance.
They said Greece could assist Cyprus more in deliberations to reach a solution after the Eurogroup pushed for a partial confiscation of bank accounts as Cyprus’ share of a bailout to save its banks and economy. But 68.6 percent of participants believed that Greece must take a tougher negotiation stand, as Cyprus initially did, in future talks with international lenders who have kept the country afloat with multi-billion euro aids in exchange for painful austerity and reform measures since 2010.
But at the same time, 70.8 percent of respondents want Greece to stay in the Eurozone, despite increasing skepticism over the European common currency and the European Union. Meanwhile, some 45 percent of Greeks support the dissolution of the Eurozone and 40.4 percent the EU’s breakup.
An overwhelming majority of 96 percent of respondents said that Germany, with its harsh stance over the Greek debt crisis and over the developments across Europe over the past three years, was interested only in its national interests and not helping Greece.
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