With its new "political negotiating team" in place, the Greek government aims to draw its lenders' attention to a set of modest but symbolic spending cuts it has already achieved over the past two months or is scheduled to implement by the end of this year. The reshuffle of the team was welcomed by the European Commission. "With the new[team], the idea is to move faster towards an indispenable agreement," commented a Commission official.
The coalition government of the leftist…
Referendum?
True to the non-conformist style of his leftist government, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras participated in a night owl talk show broadcast by the private Greek TV channel Star on 27 April. The programme started at 23:30 and lasted three hours. Fielding questions from the audience, Tsipras confirmed for the first time that the option of holding a referendum was on the table. Should his government find itself faced with an agreement imposed by the lenders that would go beyond the limits of the mandate his party received in the elections in January, the Greek people would decide, Tsipras said. He also accused Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi of not keeping their word after the initial agreement that was reached on 20 February. Greece has been "misled," Tsipras claimed, accusing the ECB of not reversing its decision not to accept Greek state bonds held by Greek banks as collateral for fresh loans.
