Deputy Social Security Minister Dimitris Stratoulis stated that Greece will go to snap elections if lenders insist on austerity measures in order to sign a financial aid agreement.
“The lenders want to impose hard measures. If they do not back down from this package of blackmail the government…will have to seek alternative solutions: elections, after the Greek people are informed, of course” Stratoulis said on ANT1 television on Friday. The deputy minister belongs to SYRIZA’s so-called left platform.
However, Stratoulis’ statement follows a series of similar statements by members of the SYRIZA government after Thursday’s new impasse in talks between Greece and creditors. The reforms list presented to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is considered by the Greek government as continuation of austerity, thereby not acceptable.
There is a lot of anger expressed by SYRIZA cabinet members and MPs over the creditors’ list of proposals. The pension cuts proposed were the most talked-about measure and received cries of disapproval by the government.
Economy Minister Giorgos Stathakis said characteristically that if lenders “proposed such measures in their countries, they would have to escape by helicopter.” He was referring to the proposed 300-euro main pensions and 30-euro supplementary pensions as included in the list the creditors handed to the Greek prime minister.
Stathakis also said that the bundling of the four repayments to the International Monetary Fund was a political decision and that Greece actually had the funds to pay the first June installment of 300 million euros on June 5.
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