Greece's SYRIZA-led government has won a confidence vote in Parliament, ahead of high-stakes talks in Brussels with bailout creditors.
Lawmakers voted 162-137 for Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' government, elected on January 25 on a platform pledging to radically overhaul austerity in the financially struggling country.
Earlier, Tsipras struck a defiant tone, saying there is "no way back" in Greece's quest to rewrite its bailout commitments.
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Under the organizing title "Breath of Dignity", standing in front of parliament, protesters unfurled banners reading "Bankrupt but Free" and "Stop Austerity, Support Greece, Change Europe." Satellite demonstrations took place in Brussels, at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, in Venice and elsewhere in Europe.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras tweeted a picture of the Athens protest, saying: "In the cities of Greece and Europe the people are fighting the negotiation battle, They are our strength."
Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis was attending a meeting of his euro zone peers in Brussels to press for a new debt deal and an end to many of the tough reforms required by the bailout deal.
Protesters in Athens singled out German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has led demands for Athens to keep promises made by the last conservative-led government under the deal.
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By Theo Ioannou
Snow has interrupted traffic on the Kastoria-Florina and Florina-Kastoria provincial road network via Vitsi, while motorists on the Arnissa-Vorra Pellas sky resort are advised to use snow chains.
Snow is falling on the mountains in northern Greece and in Thessaly, in the central part of the country, with temperatures around 0 degrees Celsius.
According to forecasts, the bad weather will continue until Tuesday with heavy snowfall and low temperatures in the eastern and northern parts of the country, especially at higher altitudes.
Snow is expected in the Attica region as well, with the surrounding mountains Pendeli, Parnitha and Immitos already turning white.
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With a difficult week looming for Greece and amid rising pressure from creditors, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Sunday presented his government’s policy program in Parliament, pledging to implement pre-election promises to revoke austerity measures, though not all at once.
“We only have one commitment – to serve the interests of the people, the good of society,” he said, adding that it was the “irrevocable decision” of his government to implement campaign promises “in their entirety.”
The premier said the government would not seek an extension to Greece’s bailout, noting that it would be an “extension of mistakes and disaster,” and reiterated Greek demands for a “bridge” deal to be put in place until a “mutually acceptable agreement” is reached with creditors. “We do not intend to threaten stability in Europe,” he said, adding, however, that he would not “negotiate” the country’s sovereignty.
Tsipras said his government needs “fiscal space” for a discussion on restructuring Greece’s debt and a new deal, adding that increasing austerity would only exacerbate the problem.
He pledged to replace a unified property tax (ENFIA) with a new tax on large property and to increase the tax-free income threshold to 12,000 euros from 5,000 euros. He also vowed to introduce a fair tax system and crack down on tax evasion and corruption. Collective wage bargaining will be restored, Tsipras said, adding that the minimum wage will return to 751 euros a month from 586 euros, though gradually from now until 2016.
Greek authorities would also reinstate at the end of the year the so-called 13th pension for retirees earning less than 700 euros a month, Tsipras said.
A chief priority remains tackling the “humanitarian crisis,” he said, pledging free electricity and food to households that have fallen victim to the “barbarous measures” of recent years. In the civil service, immediate rehirings will include dismissed Finance Ministry cleaners, school guards and university administrative staff, he said, noting that this would not burden the budget and will come from planned hirings for 2015.
The premier also pledged to reopen ERT, the state broadcaster that was abruptly shut down in June 2013 by the former government, and to launch a parliamentary investigation to determine how Greece entered the memorandum. On privatizations, he said the government welcomed private investment but rejected a “selloff,” adding that utilities would not be up for sale. In a dig at Germany, he said it was a “historic duty” for Greece to seek war reparations and the return of a forced loan during WWII.
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Despite pressure from eurozone officials to agree to a further extension to the existing bailout, the Greek government insisted Friday that it would not accept its partners’ offer but would instead propose the terms of a bridging agreement to see it through the next few months. An extra Eurogroup meeting is due on Wednesday, when Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis will set out to Greece’s partners how the government envisages covering its funding needs over the next few months until a more comprehensive agreement between all parties is reached.
Government sources were adamant Friday that Greece would not accept the outstanding 7.2-billion-euro bailout tranche, which would require the SYRIZA-led coalition to complete a set of structural reforms.
Athens’s plan is based around being given permission to issue more treasury bills after reaching the 15-billion-euro limit it had agreed with the troika. It also wants to receive 1.9 billion euros from profits the European Central Bank made as part of its SMP program, which involved purchasing Greek bonds on the secondary market. This 1.9 billion is included in the 7.2-billion-euro installment.
The indications from Brussels Friday were that eurozone officials would not accept these proposals. It is thought that Varoufakis will present a commitment by the new Greek government not to take any unilateral action while the bridging deal is in place, to commit to fiscal targets and structural reforms proposed by Athens.
Varoufakis held a lengthy meeting Friday with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Deputy Prime Minister Yiannis Dragasakis.
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Greece respects European Union rules and will find a solution to its economic problems within the framework of EU law, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Wednesday, adding there was no agreement yet, but talks were going in the right direction.
Tsipras and his Syriza party won an election in January on promises of negotiating a debt write-off, the reversal of some reforms and ending fiscal consolidation -- provoking a stand-off with its international creditors like the euro zone.
"I'm very optimistic that we will try to do our best in order to find a common, viable and mutually acceptable solution for our common future," Tsipras said on his first visit to Brussels and after talks with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Council President Donald Tusk and European Parliament President Martin Schulz.
"Our goal is to respect the people's sovereignty in Greece and the clear mandate of our people. At the same time we respect the rules of the European Union. We want to recorrect this framework, not to smash this framework and we believe that in this framework we could find a common viable solution," he said.
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The next few days leading up to the European Summit scheduled for the 12th of February are going to be critical for Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, whose main priorities will be to manage expectations and preserve the peace in Greece and Europe.
An unnamed government official told To Vima on Monday evening that “we may see smoked for the Commission’s building on Wednesday”, in reference to Mr. Tsipras’ meeting with Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels on the 4th of February. The Greek Premier is then scheduled to meet French President Francois Hollande, while Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is rumored to see Wolfgang Schäuble next week, ahead of the Summit.
The goals are clear, to establish a channel of communication with Paris, Rome and Berlin and then to define the negotiation framework between Athens and the Commission. After Mr. Tsipras discusses his police statements next week, he will hope to attend the Summit in a friendly, rather than hostile, environment.
Meanwhile the German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be meeting with US President Barack Obama early next week, indicating that there will be a wealth of behind-the-scenes debates and developments.
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Tsipras and his finance minister Yanis Varoufakis are touring European capitals this week in a diplomatic offensive to replace Greece's bailout accord with the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund "Troika".
After a tumultuous first week during which his left-leaning government made clear it intends to keep campaign promises to ditch the tough austerity conditions imposed under its existing bailout, the emphasis this week appears to be on maintaining that a deal is still possible.
"We are in substantial negotiations with our partners in Europe and those that have lent to us. We have obligations towards them," Tsipras said at a news conference in Cyprus during his first foreign visit as prime minister.
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The economist-turned-finance minister seeking to renegotiate Greece's huge debt obligations says his priority is the well-being of all Europeans and has ruled out accepting more bailout cash. After talks with his French counterpart, Yanis Varoufakis said a new debt deal was needed within months.
Michel Sapin said France was ready to help Greece settle with its creditors.
Mr Varoufakis is in London on Monday for similar talks with the UK Chancellor George Osborne.
Ahead of the meeting, Mr Osborne said that he welcomed the opportunity to "discuss face to face with Yanis Varoufakis the stability of the European economy and how to boost its growth".
Mr Varoufakis is to travel to Rome next on his trip around Europe's capitals and financial hubs.
His comments follow remarks on Saturday by new Greek PM Alexis Tsipras, who said he was confident Greece could reach a deal with creditors.
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As representatives of the new Greek government begin a round of visits to eurozone countries, President Barack Obama has suggested that Greece will not be able to recover from its economic crisis unless there is a let up in austerity policies. “You cannot keep on squeezing countries that are in the midst of depression,” when CNN’s Fareed Zakaria asked him about the case of Greece.
“At some point, there has to be a growth strategy in order to pay off their debts and eliminate some of their deficits.
“There is no doubt that the economy of Greece was in dire need of reform,” he said in the interview broadcast on Sunday. “Tax collection was famously terrible. In order for Greece to compete in the world markets, they had to initiate a series of changes.”
However, the US president underlined that it is very difficult to carry out reforms when a country’s economy has contracted dramatically. Greece saw almost a quarter of its GDP disappear between 2008 and 2014.
“It’s very hard to initiate those changes if people’s standards of living are dropping by 25 percent,” he said. “Over time, the political system and society cannot sustain it.”
Obama also made reference to the compromise that would be needed by the SYRIZA-led coalition and the eurozone to reach a deal that would keep Greece in the single currency.
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