EUROZONE-GREECE/TALKS REAX Anxious Greeks want deal with creditors

Record ID: 150651

  • Title: EUROZONE-GREECE/TALKS REAX Anxious Greeks want deal with creditors
  • Date: 8th June 2015
  • Summary: ATHENS, GREECE (JUNE 8, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WALKING OUTSIDE GREEK PARLIAMENT GREEK FLAG WAVING ON TOP OF PARLIAMENT PEOPLE WALKING IN SQUARE STREET PERFORMER MAKING HUGE SOAP BUBBLES STREET PERFORMER PLAYING VIOLIN (SOUNDBITE) (Greek) ATHENS RESIDENT, AGED 62, ANASTASIOS MARIDAS, SAYING: "I believe that a deal must be reached, a deal must be clinched whatever
  • Embargoed: 23rd June 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Greece
  • Country: Greece
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA30FYBBZ8VYD0Z4BB5YYG05KMD
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Greeks on Monday (June 8) expressed mixed feelings over the way they want their government to tackle negotiations with its European and international creditors, after the EU chief lashed out at the Greek prime minister at the weekend saying he'd failed to deliver on alternative economic reforms.
    Opinion polls show three-quarters of Greeks want to stay in the eurozone and a majority want the government to reach a deal with the lenders even if that means more sacrifices.
    "I believe that a deal must be reached, a deal must be clinched whatever it takes," said Athens resident Anastasios Maridas.
    Seventy-one-year-old pensioner, Theofilos Paleos, said the proposals submitted by Greece and from its euro zone partners were equally disappointing and did not address the real problems the Greek economy is facing.
    "Unless there is growth in Greece - no matter what the prime minister, Merkel and all the others say - it is nothing but fairy tales. The only way to see better days in Greece is to have growth, otherwise nothing will change," he said.
    Sofia, an 80-year-old pensioner, said the country and its people couldn't continue in this limbo and that it would be better for the government to come to an agreement with its lenders even if it meant the next couple of years would be hard.
    "Things are very hard and I am worried. I have grandchildren and I do not want Greece to continue being this way. If what it takes for things to change is for the people to live for two or three years through hardships, let it be," she said.
    But another Athens resident, who gave his name only as Nikos, said the Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras should step down as he had tricked citizens to vote for the leftist Syriza party on promises to end austerity.
    "He must resign and stop fooling the people. What he said prior to the elections is different to what he is saying now. They had said no tax increases, rescinding the special property tax, what's happened to all these (promises)?"
    Greece and its EU and International Monetary Fund lenders have been locked in tortuous negotiations on a reforms agreement for over four months without a breakthrough in sight.
    The European Union's exasperation with Greece burst into the open on Sunday (June 7) when its chief executive rebuked leftist Tsipras and warned that time was running out to conclude a debt deal to avert a damaging Greek default.
    In unusually sharp terms, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker accused Tsipras of distorting proposals by international creditors for a cash-for-reform agreement and of dragging his feet in offering an alternative.
    He urged Athens to put its own ideas on the table swiftly to enable talks to resume on the sidelines of an EU-Latin America summit on Wednesday (June 10) in Brussels.
    A government spokesman on Monday said the government considers its reforms proposal to lenders as the basis for a deal but is willing to compromise to meet the needs of euro zone and IMF creditors.
    He also said resorting to elections was not part of the government's plans and that Athens was not seeking an extension to its bailout programme either when it expires at the end of June.
    Athens is looking for a deal with lenders, he said, adding that the government had previously warned it was looking for an agreement so that it could avoid a move like what it did last week, when it delayed an IMF payment to be bundled with others and paid at the end of the month.
    Tsipras had been expected to return to Brussels last Friday (June 5) to resume negotiations. But faced with a backlash against the creditors' proposal in his Syriza party, he went to parliament in Athens instead and denounced the offer as "absurd".
    Athens and its international lenders are still struggling to make headway on talks to unlock remaining bailout aid.
    Greece has received two EU/IMF bailouts totaling 240 billion euros since 2010, when it lost access to capital markets after admitting it had issued erroneous figures for years concealing the true scale of its budget deficit.
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