According to a statement by the office of Prime Minister, negotiations with the troika have been concluded. “We did everything we could. We exhausted all the limits of pressure and time. We achieved significant improvements even in the final hour,” Samaras said.

“What would happen if the deal isn’t passed and the country is led to chaos?” he said in the statement. “Such dangers must be avoided. That is the responsibility of each party and every MP individually,” he added.

The draft budget for 2013, which provides for measures of EUR 9.2 billion, a GDP contraction of 4.5% and a primary surplus of 0.5%, is tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras today. The budget will have to get the House’s vote by November 11, Kathimerini writes. Along with the budget, the government will submit the updated midterm program as a separate chapter with a report about the measures that will have to be taken by 2016.

Meanwhile, today the Eurogroup of Eurozone finance ministers will also be holding a teleconference to decide on the disbursement of the EUR 31.5 billion tranche of bailout funding for Greece as the Euro Working Group is on its third day of talks in Brussels over Greece.

After a meeting between Employment Minister Yannis Vroutsis and Democratic Left leader Fotis Kouvelis yesterday ended inconclusively, Kouvelis’ party reaffirmed its stance opposite to the changes to labour laws; in particular, it rejected the abolition of the marriage bonus for employees and ending the automatic extension of collective wage agreements.

The secretary of the Democratic Left’s central committee, Spyros Lykoudis, said that unless the problem is resolved, there remains the possibility that the party will pull out of government. “We can honestly say that we want consistency in the government,” he said.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and his coalition partners Evangelos Venizelos and Fotis Kouvelis meet today at 1 p.m. Samaras is to seek to forge a common line with his coalition partners on the measures before traveling to Rome for a three-day official visit. FinMin Stournaras, who is to stay in Athens and continue talks with the troika, has said he hopes for a final agreement on the measures by Sunday.

Yesterday, the tension was evident in the coalition, when PASOK and Democratic Left leaders complained that they have never been informed about the government’s package of measures in detail by anyone in the economic team. PASOK said that they have been informed in detail only for the measures of EUR 5 billion. Democratic Left admitted that they were asked to participate in the troika negotiations but refused, adding that they have made a number of proposals over the summer achieving the equivalent measures.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras met again yesterday afternoon with the troika head representatives in an on-going effort to finalise the EUR 11.5-billion austerity package. According to NET state television, a list of harsh measures “were back on the table” including reductions to low-level pensions, raising of the retirement age and further cutbacks to state administrative costs.

Finance ministry sources told protothema.gr the measures for EUR 2 billion that have been finalised and covered a part of the financial gap of EUR 4 billion, came from cuts in Health, Defense and local authorities. “There is still the tough core”, sources he told reporters, meaning the extra measures of EUR 2 billion that are being examined and will be for salaries and pensions.

According to Protothem.gr, troika is now pressing so the EUR 9.5 billion from the EUR 11.5 billion be saved from cuts in wages and pensions, instead of the EUR 7 billion in the original plan. Officials are also discussing horizontal wage cuts to public administration, at the rate of 5%.

The government aims to save EUR 8.5 billion euros from cuts to salaries, pensions and benefits. And if they add another EUR 1 billion, expected to be collected from the increase in the retirement age from 65 to 67 years, then imposed cuts will reach EUR 9.5 billion.Reductions to pensions will start much lower, perhaps from EUR 600 in total, rather than EUR 1,000. Officials are also thinking of cutting the minimum IKA pension close to EUR 400, and re-thinking of cutting the minimum OGA pension from EUR 360 to EUR 330. It is now almost certain that the already agreed measures include the elimination of the remainder of the 13th and 14th salaries in the public sector and the elimination of the 13th and 14th pensions for all pensioners.

According to information even if there are legal issues the Troika sees that the public sector will not be able to withstand the increased pension costs of tens of thousands of employees who massively apply to guarantee their pension from now. Something similar applies to private sector employees who exercise their right to a pension because they cannot find work. From these discussions, it appears that the Troika favors a legal response to the phenomenon, which will hit those who hastily enter retirement from now, so as not to leave them without income as retired “reservists” of the public sector in the coming years. The same information mentions that even the private sector could not support the hordes of unpaid pensioners that will seek employment and income in the market.

According to ANA, troika officials informed the government that they accepted EUR 5.5 billion of proposed measures, but required clarification on EUR 3.5 billion’ worth of proposals. They deemed the remaining EUR 2.5 billion’ worth of measures as unacceptable. The lenders demanded that the new austerity package allow for public-sector layoffs, a policy the coalition parties reject. They also reject the proposed savings of EUR 517 million in the defence budget, pointing out that the measure simply involves the government postponing EUR 437 million of expenditure until 2015. Troika inspectors also doubt the feasibility of cutting EUR 735 million from the local government budget and EUR 1.4 billion from pharmaceutical spending.

Meanwhile, in a policy paper, Democratic Left party proposed some EUR 1.23 billion in alternative cutbacks in defense, health and energy sector outlays, so as to avoid slashing pensions and other benefits. Greece should avoid across-the-board cuts in bonus payments to pensioners and raising the retirement age, the party said, Capital.gr writes.

According to the paper, savings in defense could be secured through the reorganization and the deferment of procurement spending into the future, health sector savings through more efficient procurement practices, and the reduction in subsidies to certain energy producers.

On the other hand, it seems that today’s coalition is -as everybody says- Greece’s last chance to stay in the Eurozone. The fear factor, which was dominant throughout the pre election period and immediately after, worked well with citizens who voted as expected, marginally avoiding the experiment with political radicalism (‘call me Alexis’), and on the other hand giving a weak victory to ND party to force it to cooperate with what is left from the old centre-left.

Later on, government spin efforts replaced fear with hope, with FinMin arguing that we need to try a little bit harder to stay under the Eurozone umbrella, at a time when Europe is about to change. True, but again, not ours. Just like Mario Draghi’s recent intervention: Europe marked it as a new starting point, markets were somehow relieved and Greeks kept trying to figure out how, and if, they were benefited. Greeks know well deep inside that a pathetic -wait and see- stance will bring the country nowhere. Salvation -or, what foreign media keep calling bailout- strategy will depend on initiatives taken from within. So, the motto we should, perhaps, stick to is that the solution “is in our hands”.

Alexis Tsipras knows well that Antonis Samaras will play the troika game, take the heat and hope for some positive results when the boat starts turning, to feed new political talk towards re-election. To reach that, Samaras’ led coalition will have to go through hell; opinion polls will make things even worse.

Alexis Tsipras knows that when the slow Greek boat starts turning, his chances to attack will be numbered. By then he hopes to have a decent political rhetoric, along with the necessary professionalism to turn a wave into government.

Tsipras also knows that Samaras’ staffers are average, cabinet members are of the past, whilst the quotas the Premier had to take in from his coalition partners seem politically helpless. However, the Premier seems determined to save face, along with the reputation of his generation.

Things do not come easy though. Nearly 100 days after the elections, the government continues to staff key positions and is still trying to figure out “equivalent measures” to avoid horizontal cuts, a political bubble that troika wishes to put to rest next to the “renegotiation” rhetoric.

For those who can view Greece from a distance, what they see is from one hand troika (EC-ECB-IMF) people moving in high gear, pushing for the only thing Greeks can accomplish (namely withhold people’s money in the source) and from the other, the leftovers of the previous political system dragged in a battle 2 out of 3 of them appear unwilling to fight. Hence the differences: Antonis seems determined to fire at the enemy before dying in the barracks, Evangelos may eventually save his life as a disgraced HQ clerk, while Fotis is about to catch a stray bullet, while wandering disoriented in no man’s land.

Despite all, the future has presented itself. After the old generation manages to reach its redemption, new politicians (of a different sort) should come forward to take it from there. And here is the most important thing Tsipras knows. If his new competition is once again old school, he will prevail; big time.

Thus, for people to gain from political competition, common sense dictates that new ‘Tsiprases’ should appear to reposition Greek politics (hopefully closer to Europe) and move the country forward. But the process is going to be bloody.

Dr. Demetris Kamaras is the Editor of AlYunaniya.com

Current government coalition has been a possibility even before the votes were counted on the night of June 17. And as most analysts admit, elections were won due to fear tactics explored by old politics. Samaras, Venizelos and Kouvelis, after failing to agree in May, they got a second chance in June to form a government that should be willing to sacrifice itself to save the country.

In troika’s mind, there was only one path: to follow the Papademos’ government way. However, this was something Greek voters pledged the new government to avoid. When they heard the right-wing rhetoric built around the ‘MoU re-negotiation’ concept, they thought they did it. When Antonis Samaras promised to renegotiate the infamous Memorandum, voters saw an opportunity to combine austerity relief with the conservative, safer approach of ND. So they ditched the radical vote, doing Alexis Tsipras a favor, who, in reality, hoped to spend sometime in the opposition before getting serious with the country’s core politics.

By voting for old politics, Greeks decided to stay in familiar waters and refrain from exploring the uncertainty of the new. Besides, a 3-year austerity made people weaker, placing them closer to the indifference threshold.

Unfortunately or not, voters were spared with the technicalities. Pre-election rhetoric was based on the magic word of ‘re-negotiation’; a handful of columnists and politicians who really explained the fallacy were swamped by partisan juxtaposition. On election night, the new Prime Minister already abandoned the strong campaign word and started talking about ‘amendments’ that would be put into effect sometime during the 4-year period of governance and, most importantly, they would be received as a ‘bonus’ for playing the predetermined austerity cards right.

This is how a government can screw up political communication strategy (if any) overnight. Hardcore Samaras’ associates will probably say that communication is not that important, since what matters is real structural changes. Wrong. In times of crisis, people are disoriented. If you do not package your politics right, you are finished, especially in Greece, and particularly when you are a conservative leader running a coalition scheme supported by the socialists and the left.

From the moment the coalition is once again messing around with pensions, salaries and social benefits (namely horizontal measures) the pistol is cocked and the trigger is about to be pressed. Is people’s new disappointment enough to break a government? Probably not, but if the opposition manages to give meaningful words to social discontent, then breaking a link would be enough to unlock the administration and take it down; not noisily on the streets of Athens, but in the chambers of strategic politics.

The survival of the government depends on a really weak link held by PASOK leadership and this weak link is about to crack for a variety of reasons.

First of all, despite all the laws and measures passed in the past, most people consider the attack on household income a fresh piece of government policy. Being under the bankruptcy threat is no longer a strong argument; it was burned out during the Papandreou years.

The government’s vagueness about the new austerity measures continues the fear tactics, making things even worse. This alienates voters even further from the old political system, whose leftovers were used to form today’s government coalition. In simple terms, those who initiated fear and presented themselves as citizens’ protectors quickly failed on their promises and once more engaged fear as a tool to bail themselves out of the pressure.

When you need cash fast, is there any other alternative than cut spending from the source? Probably not, but why lie to the people? Was it the result of amateur political spinning or a failure of leadership to assess reality?

And this brings us to coalition’s inner politics. Old PASOK and Venizelos are in a down slope (sources say that a new formation is under way by key PASOK people) and Kouvelis is already experiencing an identity crisis and is in no position to play a role without the intermediary socialist link. This could crack the government in no time.

But still, a triggering event is required to make things roll that should be about the people (and not about partisan relations) and would put the coalition in a real unity test. In my view, this grassroots event is already scheduled in the political agenda for late August or early September and has nothing to do with troika’s wises.

It will be genuinely about the people and for the people.

This is the new draft bill for the relief of over-indebted households from loan obligations, tabled by SYRIZA to be discussed when the Parliament returns from the summer break.

Tsipras’ political argument is simple and involves hundreds of thousands of households that saw their budgets flattened by the crisis, due to unemployment or massive reduction of income. This policy was included in Antonis Samaras’ speeches during the pre-election period, but nothing is heard ever since.

The technical argument is that the banks are making up the losses from bad loans through their recapitalization from the Credit Stability Fund. At the same time, the banks continue to demand the repayment of the delayed installments, regardless of the fact that those loans have been classified as bad debts and are taken into account by the recapitalization.

In plain talk, those who will disagree with the bill would sound like asking Greek people to pay the banks twice for financial management failures of the past: first, via national borrowing for recapitalization, and second, from their own pockets for bad personal loans.

So, who is going to disagree with Tsipras’ proposal and on what grounds? In terms of political communication, this move is an absolute winner. It could rule the agenda and meddle beautifully with the new austerity measures the coalition government is about to announce; furthermore, it corners the coalition government politically, and challenges MPs (through a catalogue name vote) on an individual as well as collective level.

Conspiracy advocates could say that this is planned between the Premier and the main opposition. If this is not the case, New Democracy will have to react, PASOK and Democratic Left will have to take sides; MPs individually will have to do the same. This could prove to be a unique moment in Greek politics, gathering an across the board agreement, or the trigger in question, ending up being a win-win for the centre left.

It could also make Antonis Samaras the Prime Minister serving the shortest term in modern Greek history and turn Alexis Tsipras into the youngest one, ever.

Dr. Demetris Kamaras is the Editor of Alyunaniya.com

Wednesday’s swearing-in took place just minutes after Greece’s socialist PASOK party announced that the country has a new government, ending nearly 2 months of political uncertainty which threatened to plunge the country in deeper recession.

“With God’s help, we’ll do everything we can to pull the country out of the crisis as soon as possible,” Samaras said after the swearing in ceremony at the Presidential palace in Athens.

“I will ask the new government to work hard and offer the Greek people tangible hope,” he added.

During the handover outgoing caretaker Premier Panayiotis Pikrammenos,wished Samaras good luck and told him: ”You have many battles ahead of you, inside Greece and abroad.”

Samaras has vowed to revise the EU-IMF bailout deal and rid the country of undocumented migrants.

Samaras, Venizelos and Kouvelis decided that the new government would comprise 15 ministers and about 20 deputy ministers, according to Kathimerini. This represents a significant reduction from the 49 ministers and deputies that served in the interim cabinet under Lucas Papademos.

PASOK will propose candidates for four ministers and as many deputy ministers while Democratic Left two for ministerial posts and two deputy ministers.

The new prime minister wants to create separate tourism and merchant marine ministries. These departments had been absorbed into the Development Ministry. The re-establishment of the Macedonia-Thrace Ministry is also on the cards, according to Kathimerini.

Samaras, Venizelos and Kouvelis held talks on Wednesday night with caretaker Finance Minister Giorgos Zannias and National Bank President Vassilis Rapanos, candidate for the post. Zannias will represent Greece at Thursday’s Eurogroup meeting and it was decided The Eurogroup is due to meet in Brussels on Thursday, where Greece’s situation is to be discussed.

New Democracy party will join forces with the socialist PASOK party led by Evangelos Venizelos, which came in third place, and the Democratic Left led by Fotis Kouvelis which have pledged to withhold the country’s bailout commitments.

Discussions on the lineup of ministers are expected to be completed by Wednesday night, according to AP. 

Samaras, 61, was sworn in three days after his party won the second national elections in less than two months but without enough votes to form a government on his own.

The new prime minister was to meet with outgoing Finance Minister Giorgos Zanias, PASOK head Evangelos Venizelos and Kouvelis on Wednesday evening, according to AP. Zanias is to represent Greece at an upcoming meeting of eurozone finance ministers.

All three parties in general back Greeces vows to withhold the country’s bailout commintments although they have pledged to renegotiate some of the terms for the rescue loans.

Greece has been dependent on rescue loans from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund since May 2010. In return, it has imposed austerity measures that have plunged the country in its fifth year of recession.

Meanwhile, Kathimerini reported that European officials are examining the possibility of extending Greece’s fiscal adjustment period, which runs until the end of 2014, by two years, sources in Brussels said.

The Eurogroup is due to meet in Brussels on Thursday, where Greece’s situation is to be discussed.

(1) No party should take the election results as an approval of its policies. The two so-called “mainstream” parties are largely to blame for the crisis. New Democracy fostered a clientelist state, presided over the exponential growth of the public debt in recent years, lied to the country’s European partners, flip-flopped over the acceptance of the bailout agreement and provoked both recent elections. Pasok largely introduced populism in Greek politics, presided over the expansion of an uncompetitive and unproductive public sector, lied to the Greek people about how much money was in the coffers and mismanaged the crisis on a monumental scale. Syriza, on the other hand, rode the body politic’s dissatisfaction and anger without proposing any realistic and feasible exit plan, incorporated Pasok’s populist narrative, intentionally muddling its own message and thus inheriting the socialists’ voters, and seemed ready to bet Greece’s continuing Eurozone membership on a toss-up. No matter which party might have come first on 17 June (in the event, New Democracy – but the argument would have been the same had Syriza come on top), the people’s verdict would not have been “steady as she goes”, but “shift your rudder”. Yet, one should always keep in mind that, as mentioned in another comment on al-Yunaniya, those who chose the Euro were not in favour of the Memorandum and those who voted against the Memorandum are not hostile to the Euro.

(2) Indeed, from the point of view of Brussels, Berlin, Paris, Frankfurt and Washington, the referendum on the Euro was answered in the affirmative. Every plebiscite on Europe in the last decade seems to have been a close call (a 51/49 verdict, so to speak). With a 62 percent participation, the Greek “referendary election” is legitimate beyond any reasonable doubt. If one adds the share of the votes acquired by parties that were outright in favour of Greece’s continued membership of the Eurozone (New Democracy, Pasok, Democratic Left, Laos and a coalition of small liberal parties) and assumes that this number equals the pro-Euro turnout in a formal referendum, one gets 51.37 percent of the expressed votes. This thought experiment of course should not (as explained above) presume that voters who chose Syriza or, even, Independent Greeks, are against the Euro – in fact Syriza promoted itself a pro-European force and assured everyone that its aim is to keep Greece in the common currency zone. If one adds, therefore, a large chunk of citizens who voted for these two parties, one gets the 70-80 percent of the body politic that declared itself in favour of the Euro in most opinion polls.

So Greeks realized their first task – to keep rowing, remain in the Eurozone, and not rock the boat, until an overall solution is found. The onus is now on the navigator (the Commission) and the engine room (Germany): if Brussels and Berlin continue to be intransigent and do not accept that something has to be done to alleviate the plight of the Greek population and a great lot has to be done to solve a crisis that is much wider and much deeper than a few profligate Greeks [whose economy is barely larger than 2 percent of the Eurozone’s] consuming too much – then the Eurozone will sink and it will all end in tears. The possible dangers are legion: the icebergs and icebanks from all over Europe, the tsunami that will be created if one or more Spanish regions go under, and the fabled giant rogue wave that most Italian mariners are afraid of…

Spyros A. Vretos is a Journalist and translator

According to opinion polls published until midnight Friday, when the ban of publication began, ND was leading with more than 25%, followed closely by SYRIZA, which has a strong crowd in Attica area (according to the latest poll by Kapa Research, SYRIZA leads in Attica with 26% vs. ND’s 22.9%) and in young voters (30.1% vs. 17.9%).

PASOK appears ‘blocked’ at the level achieved in previous elections (13.18%), since it seems unable to approach dissatisfied voters. A significant reduction of electoral strength is observed in the cases of Independent Greeks, KKE and Golden Dawn, whereas Democratic Left seems to record a small decline, or increase, depending on the poll. From the parties that on May 6 failed to reach the Parliament threshold, Re-Create Greece/Drasi seems the only party that could manage to enter the House.

Meanwhile, the debate between Antonis Samaras and Alexis Tsipras -which could play a key role in shaping the election outcome- has been canceled, allegedly due to a disagreement as regards the participating journalists.

SYRIZA said Alexis Tsipras wants a free televised debate that would cover all subjects, protothema.gr reports. They say that Antonis Samaras’ associates are seeking to lead the processes to a dead end in order to cancel the debate. In addition, they explain that their wish is for the debate to escape the narrow limits to which it were held in previous years and have a dialogue in which every political leader will be able to reply directly to his interlocutor or even interrupt him.

According to Kathimerini, ND claimed it had agreed with SYRIZA almost all the details for a Samaras vs Tsipras debate but that the leftists scuppered the deal by issuing two statements outlining their positions on the discussions. SYRIZA said it wanted two debates: one between Samaras and Tsipras based on the format of the French presidential debate and another between the leaders of all the parties, apart from Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn).

ND states that although the name of journalist Nikos Hatzinikolaou had been agreed on for carrying out the debate, suddenly SYRIZA tabled another journalist as well (Elli Stai). Earlier, SYRIZA had proposed conducting two debates, one between Samaras and Tsipras and another with the participation of all leaders except Golden Dawn’s N. Michaloliakos.

SYRIZA said: “after days of silence, ND finally decided to announce its pre-assumed decision not to conduct debates, fearing the visibility and contrast of its positions before the Greek people. This is a cowardly political stance…” There had been no agreement between the two parties since ND repeatedly looked for excuses and hid by postponing contacts between representatives of the parties, while it falsely leaked that an agreement had been decided upon.

Obviously, Samaras, Venizelos and Kouvelis needed no fortunetellers to forecast the glorious years Tsipras would have in front of him being in the main opposition, while the aforementioned trio would be consumed by the additional measures included in the second MoU. There would be no political peace, the left reaction would surge and soon the country would found itself once again in a dead-end.

Bottom line this is politics in Greece, especially when a weak 3-party coalition in the MoU years equals to almost the same (or less) power a strong party used to have in the years of prosperity.

So, what is going to be? Which approach is more suitable to describe the future of local politics? Is Greek electorate following the canoe paradigm, or we are in front of a SYRIZA sailboat effect, as a diplomat put in a recent gathering. Will things balance again after a strong sideward movement or Tsipras will become the youngest prime minister in Europe?

I used to argue that current gen of politicians is equally problematic as the one their mentors belonged to. So, a new leader in his thirties could make a difference. But again, in the case of Greece, new leadership should not emerge from the left. Not at the moment. The country cannot afford sailing the Left boat in unmarked waters. We need a coalition of the willing and a period of careful planning and courageous implementation of structural changes and wider modernisation moves to put our house in order.

All these are at stake once again in June 17. My view is that given the circumstances and the severe damages PASOK has suffered in May, the only anti-SYRIZA force could emerge from the centre-right that would cooperate with Venizelos’ party (a new name and branding strategy remain a possibility), use a new liberal centrist force as a glue (Drasi with Re-Create Greece) and keep Democratic Left as a backup plan for the future. Moreover, some Kammenos’ MPs could possibly return to ND nest, offering their support in a coalition, or as soon as the government puzzle is solved.

However, for the time being, the call for unity in the centre-right lacks the required dynamism as well as touch to society, since it focuses on Dora Bakoyannis’ and some LAOS’ MPs return, two moves that symbolically are reciprocally neutralized. Uniting the centre-right per se does not seem relevant to Greek people; especially when the country’s obligations to the MoU will lead to the introduction of 6 more tax hikes in the next few months, some of them -regrettably- arriving through the post before June 17.

What perhaps would be relevant to Greeks is a constructive approach to their problems, old and new, an ability SYRIZA lacks by default.

The majority of Greek citizens are looking for a rationale to avoid voting for Alexis; but old leaderships do almost nothing to give them a reason not to.

Dr. Demetris Kamaras is the Editor of AlYunaniya.com