NEWS

SYRIZA leader asks EU officials to ‘reexamine’ bailout

Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) leader Alexis Tsipras has written to top EU officials to argue that Greece?s Memorandum of Understanding with its lenders has been ?politically delegitimized? by the result of Sunday?s elections, which saw New Democracy and PASOK ? the two parties that signed the deal ? gain just 32 percent of the vote.

Tsipras, however, toned down his pre-election talk of unilaterally rejecting the terms of the bailout. Instead, he called for the agreement to be ?reexamined.?

?The Greek people?s vote on Sunday, May 6 politically delegitimizes the Memorandum of Understanding? which was signed by the leaders of the two parties that guaranteed the Papademos government?s parliamentary majority,? wrote the SYRIZA leader in his letter.

He added that the EU-IMF program had also lost its legitimacy because it had failed to ?challenge the structural imbalances and inequalities in the Greek economy.?

?Greece is the money European country that in peacetime is going through a fifth year of deep recession,? Tsipras added.

?We must urgently protect the economic and social stability of our country? the continued application of the internal devaluation program will lead the economy to disaster, without creating conditions for recovery.?

Tsipras, who had proposed that Greece reject the bailout terms, suggested in his letter that they be reviewed instead.

?It is our duty to reexamine the whole framework of the existing strategy, given that it not only threatens social cohesion and stability in Greece but is a source of instability for the European Union and the eurozone.?

The letter was sent to the European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, the head of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy, European Parliament chief Martin Schultz, European Central Bank president Mario Draghi and Eurogroup head Jean-Claude Juncker.

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