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Venizelos Kills Stournaras With Kindness

Greek Deputy PM Evangelos Venizelos (R) is no fan of FinMin Yannis Stournaras
Greek Deputy PM Evangelos Venizelos (R) is no fan of FinMin Yannis Stournaras

Greek Deputy Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos, who served as the country’s finance chief in a previous PASOK Socialist administration, took some verbal shots at current Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras’ method of handling the country’s ongoing economic crisis, widening the rift between them and creating more tension with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, the New Democracy Conservative leader.
Venizelos, the PASOK leader who relented on austerity measures and was rewarded by Samaras as his titular second-in-command as well as Foreign Minister, reportedly had tried to scuttle Stournaras’ appointment last year. Stournaras left the prestigious IOBE think tank, to take the thankless job to be Samaras’ point man in tough negotiations with international lenders over delayed reforms.
Responding to reporters’ questions on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Brussels, Venizelos said Stournaras could not assume a senior post in the next European Commission. “Of course not. Stournaras is irreplaceable,” said Venizelos, who is PASOK’s leader and foreign minister.
“He talks sweetly, he reassures people, he expresses — in the best possible way — the sympathy and compassion that the Greek people need,” he added. These are all the qualities that Venizelos’ critics say he lacks.
When he was finance minister Venizelos imposed 74 percent losses on private investors and holders of Greek bonds, taxed the poor and doubled property taxes, but now said he won’t go along with more austerity measures, nor ending a ban on foreclosures on homeowners who can’t afford to pay because of the crushing conditions put on them. He earlier had said that the foreclosures should go forward before a public backlash and changed his tune.
 

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