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Kouvelis, Venizelos Reject Troika Demands

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ uneasy coalition government has started to come apart over demands by international lenders for even deeper austerity measures as his partners, the PASOK Socialists of Evangelos Venizelos and Democratic Left of Fotis Kouvelis, said they will not support the firing of public workers, reductions in severance pay and a six-day work week, Greek media reported.
The government has been trying for weeks to finalize a package of $17.45 billion in spending cuts and tax hikes that Venizelos and Kouvelis have alternately supported and opposed, then opposed and supported, and now oppose again with polls showing their parties sinking rapidly because of their role in a government ready to impose harsh austerity measures on workers, pensioners and the poor.
Samaras had hoped to have a deal agreed with his partners and approved by envoys from the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) before a meeting of EU leaders on Oct. 18 in Brussels. But that seems to have fallen apart in the wake of Kouvelis and Venizelos taking a stand after they had earlier reportedly given in to the Prime Minister, who has given unconditional support to austerity after opposing it befor the June 17 elections he narrowly won.
Emerging after three-hours of talking with Samaras, the two coalition leaders backed away from austerity, particularly the demands concerning public workers. The Troika wants 150,000 workers fired by 2015 but that is the core constituency for PASOK and the Democratic Left and Kouvelis and Venizelos were said to be wary of further alienating them.
Kouvelis, whose party has fallen to barely 4 percent support, blamed the Troika for relentless insistence on more austerity. “They have to understand that their demands surpass what society can bear,” he said. That came after talks between Finance Minister Yiannis Stournas and Troika envoys broke down when the IMF envoy, Poul Thomsen, walked out and said he had to confer with his agency’s chief, Christine Lagarde.
Greece is awaiting from the Troika the release of a pending $38.8 billion installment, the last in a first series of $152 billion in rescue loans, and a second bailout, for $172 billion, is also on hold until Samaras can get his government to back more reforms and austerity, but Kouvelis was having none of it.
“The leveling to the ground of labor rights is not a structural change,” he said. He added that if Greece agreed to what the Troika wants that the country’s five-year recession, already made worse by the austerity measures the lenders have insisted on, would get even graver. “The Troika demands feed recession and galloping unemployment,” said Kouvelis.
Venizelos said the Troika has deliberately put off talks and said the postponements are hurting the country. He said the talks have to finish. He, too, said he rejected the demands and said this round of austerity, that he has alternately supported and opposed, then opposed and supported, have to be the last, echoing Samaras’ position, although Greeks have heard that before and many don’t believe it.
Stournaras told journalists as he left the meeting that he believes Greece will get the next installment in November. Samaras said previously that the government has only enough money until the end of the month. Officials on both sides denied the talks have broken down, although they’ve stopped talking for now.
“This package must be the last one,” said Venizelos, who, as finance minister in the previous government, doubled income and property taxes and taxed the poor. “We must conclude the measures but not haphazardly and not at any cost,” he said.

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