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Stournaras Wants Troika to Cut Greek Debt

Greek Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras doesn't want public sector layoffsWhile many analysts contend that Greece won’t turn the corner for years, Finance Minister Yannis Stournaeas, the country’s champion cheerleader, said Athens will press its international lenders for debt relief beginning in November if a primary surplus can be achieved by then.
In an interview with the Efimerida ton Syntakton, Stournaras said that Greek society cannot tolerate any more across-the-board cuts to wages and pensions, adding however that there was still room for cost-cutting in the state sector.
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who opposed austerity before he joined a previous coalition government, when he promptly supported it and still does, is anxious to write down the country’s still staggering $390 billion debt but can’t do that without imposing big losses on the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) which is putting up $325 billion in two bailouts to save Greece.
A previous government, during which current PASOK Socialist leader and Deputy Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos was finance minister, stiffed private investors with 74 percent losses and the coalition led by New Democracy Conservative leader Samaras, which includes PASOK, wants to do the same to the Troika.
That would mean, however, that taxpayers in the other 16 countries of the Eurozone would have to pay the bill for decades of wild Greek overspending and PASOK and New Democracy precipitating the crisis by packing public payrolls with hundreds of thousands of needless workers in return for votes.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country is footing much of the bailouts bill and has insisted on harsh austerity in return, said she would not allow Greece to give public investors a so-called “haircut,” but skeptics in her country said if she wins re-election next month that she will allow it and is trying to hide it from the German electorate for now.
Asked about speculation over early general elections, the minister said that an election would “make things more difficult” by “pushing back” the country’s reform program.
Meanwhile, the leftist opposition SYRIZA said that Stournaras is getting ready to let banks seize the homes of Greeks who can’t afford to pay their mortgages because of big pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions and is giving in to pressure from the Troika which wants homes repossessed to help banks who are already getting 50 billion euros ($65 billion) in government recapitalization monies.
In a statement, SYRIZA said if the government lifts a ban on foreclosures that expires at the end of the year that there will be a “relenteless struggle” to topple the administration.
Even some PASOK and New Democracy MP’s said they would be reluctant to lift the ban but they are directed how to vote by Samaras and Venizelos and will be kicked out of their political parties if they don’t.

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