If main opposition SYRIZA comes to power in possible snap election next year, it will demand a reduction in Greece’s debt from its bailout program, party leader Alexis Tsipras said earlier today during a financial conference in Athens.
According to the left-wing opposition leader, Greece’s economy is impossible to recover unless the money owed to its international partners is cut significantly: “We demand the immediate end of austerity, an agreement for debt haircut and a significant cut in the annual cost of servicing the debt,” Tsipras said, according to Associated Press.
Tsipras statements come amid speculation that he might soften anti-austerity position ahead of the possibility of snap election, if a new President of the Hellenic Republic is not elected in February as scheduled. So far, SYRIZA is leading consecutive polls ahead of the Presidential vote. On the contrary, the New Democracy-PASOK coalition government insists that the country’s debt is sustainable, despite reaching almost 175% of its GDP and the obligation to repay some 240 million euros in bailout loans.
With the government currently trapped in dead-end negotiations with the country’s international creditors over further cuts in exchange of the final loan installments under the bailout program, Tsipras accuses it of caving into the lenders’ demands to impose new unpopular measures, including pension cuts.
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