Tsipras briefs party leaders as ground laid for creditors
As Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and other party leaders met with President Prokopis Pavlopoulos for talks on upcoming negotiations with Greece’s creditors and on the prospect for early elections, Greek and foreign officials sought to solve procedural and logistics issues to allow auditors to return to Athens.
On Friday evening Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos sent a letter to the International Monetary Fund, requesting a “new loan facility” in line with IMF demands. IMF spokesman Gerry Rice had indicated on Thursday that an official request must be made to the Fund before it can join talks. With that obstacle apparently overcome, Greece and its creditors must now agree on where and how talks with foreign officials will take place. The SYRIZA-led government had previously objected to auditors accessing ministries, preferring that work be done in hotels.
Some groundwork has been prepared by Greek and European officials by telephone. There is even talk of a Eurogroup summit on August 11. But Greece’s creditors are said to want the government to draft more legislation, with more prior actions, over the next two weeks. Government officials, however, have indicated that no new prior actions will be necessary and are aiming to finalize an agreement and bring it to Parliament by August 18, two days before a scheduled repayment to the European Central Bank.
Tsipras on Friday spoke by telephone with French President Francois Hollande who congratulated him for “promptly adopting the prior actions as set out in the written document of the eurozone summit,” the premier’s office said. “Both leaders confirmed the importance of commitments… being honored mutually and to the letter,” the statement continued. It was referring to commitments agreed to at a July 12 eurozone leaders’ summit. There was no mention of any further measures which Tsipras is keen to avoid.
Upcoming negotiations with creditors topped the agenda of talks on Friday between Tsipras and other party leaders who met at the presidential mansion with Pavlopoulos for a lunch intended to convey a picture of unity. According to sources, Tsipras said he was seeking debt relief from creditors and was determined to bring a deal to Parliament by August 18. Efforts would be made to put back the tougher measures being sought by lenders, he is said to have told fellow party leaders. As for early elections, he said they were a real prospect in view of the current upheaval within SYRIZA but that they would not happen before an agreement is reached. One of the SYRIZA rebels that has caused the biggest headaches for Tsipras is parliament speaker Zoe Constantopoulou. PASOK leader Fofi Gennimata on Friday sent a letter to Tsipras calling for him to dismiss her for “ overreaching her authority in violation of the Constitution” and for “a lack of respect.”
Meanwhile, prominent conservative Vangelis Meimarakis, who took over as interim leader of New Democracy when Antonis Samaras resigned after the July 5 referendum, was approved by the party’s political committee as ND’s eighth president.
