Greek Leaders Struggle With Spending Reductions
This article is for subscribers only.
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras struggled to clinch agreement with his coalition partners on an 11.5 billion-euro ($14.9 billion) budget-cut package that’s key to receiving international aid funds.
Samaras was handed the third refusal in less than two weeks yesterday from Democratic Left leader Fotis Kouvelis and Pasok leader Evangelos Venizelos, the junior partners in the coalition who met to discuss proposed cuts to wages, pensions and benefits. Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras and the “troika” of inspectors from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund have been locked in talks for two weeks on carving out savings.