ATHENS--Greece's coalition parties must tell the European Union on Monday whether they accept the painful terms of a new bailout deal as EU patience wears thin with political dithering in Athens over implementing reforms.
Technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos put on a brave face as he tried to get leaders of the three parties in his government on Sunday to sign off on the terms of a 130 billion euro ($170 billion) rescue, which Greece needs soon to avoid a chaotic debt default.
Papademos said in a statement the party chiefs--who may face angry voters in parliamentary polls as soon as April--had agreed measures including wage cuts and other reforms as part of spending cuts worth 1.5 percent of gross domestic product. But a spokesman for the PASOK socialist party said a number of major issues demanded by the "Troika", representing Greece's EU, European Central Bank and IMF lenders, remained unresolved.
Talks on the new bailout, which would be Greece's second since 2010--and an accompanying deal to ease the country's huge debt burden via its private creditors accepting deep losses on the bonds they hold--have dragged on for weeks, stretching the EU's patience to breaking point. "Things are very tough and difficult," a Greek government official said, requesting anonymity.
Now the parties--PASOK, the conservative New Democracy and far-right LAOS--must respond to a working group of senior euro zone finance ministry officials who are preparing for a meeting of their ministers later in the week. "The political leaders must give their response in principle by noon tomorrow, so that it can be taken to the Euro Working Group in Brussels," said PASOK spokesman Panos Beglitis.
Beglitis made clear the leaders of the three parties still had much to negotiate as the noon deadline for a response nears. The most contentious remaining issues are labour reforms demanded by Greece's lenders and how to shore up domestic banks, which are up to their necks in Greek government bonds now worth a fraction of their face value.
"There are two big issues left--labour and banks ... those have been left for tomorrow," he said.
By late on Sunday, no meeting of the Euro Working Group had been formally scheduled for Monday but it could confer either by conference call or schedule a face-to-face meeting at short notice, depending on the outcome of talks in Athens. Greeks have been worn down by a deep recession, now in its fifth year, and wave after wave of austerity measures imposed under the first international bailout in 2010.
Alarmed by the prospect of yet more budget cuts, Greece's two main trade unions said they would call a 24-hour strike for Tuesday in protest against policies which they say have only driven the economy into a downward spiral. "Despite our sacrifices and despite admitting that the policy mix is wrong, they still ask for more austerity," Ilias Iliopoulos, secretary general of public sector union ADEDY, told Reuters.
ADEDY and its private sector sister union GSEE, which will join Tuesday's strike, represent about 2 million workers or roughly half the country's workforce.
