Syriza, the new ruling party in control of the Greek government, revealed its commitment to its anti-austerity campaign promises on Friday as its newly-appointed Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis went toe-to-toe with the head of the head of the European Union’s finance ministry and said Greece would no longer bow to the authority of foreign auditors.
Emerging from a meeting in Athens with Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch lawmaker who currently heads the Eurogroup overseeing the Greek bailout program, Varoufakis said that though the meeting was “productive” his government would not seek to extend the terms of the bailout program nor cooperate with ongoing audits that are part of the terms imposed by the so-called Troika, which includes the EU, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.
“The Greek government will not negotiate with the Troika,” he said, “Only with official partners.”
According to reporting by Helena Smith, foreign correspondent with the Guardian, “Greece has lost more than a quarter of its GDP, the worst slump in modern times, as a result of consecutive waves of budget cuts and tax rises enforced at the behest of creditors. Varoufakis and the new Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, who also met Dijsselbloem on Friday, are adamant that the government will deal only with individual institutions and on a minister-to-minister basis within the EU.”
At the press conference, citing one of Syriza’s key campaign promises, Varoufakis declared, “Our first action as a government will not be to reject the rationale of questioning [the bailout] program through a request to extend it. We respect institutions but we don’t plan to cooperate with [the Troika’s auditing] committee.”
Syriza’s promise to strong firm against Greek’s foreign creditors, Varoufakis added, “enabled us to win the confidence of the Greek people.” That trust, he indicated, would not be broken.
As Smith notes, however, the outcome of the Greek’s new negotiating position on the bailout agreement, led by Tsipras and his outspoken finance minister, is far from certain.
Those attending the post-meeting press conference with Varoufakis and Dijsselbloem described the tension between the two men as palpable.
As Reuters reports:
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