MEP Hannes Swoboda accuses troika of making ‘unacceptable demands’ of Greece
The head of the European Parliament’s Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) on Tuesday launched a scathing attack against Greece’s international creditors, saying that they are making “unacceptable demands” of the cash-strapped nation.
Speaking at a press conference in Strasbourg, Austrian MEP Hannes Swoboda said that despite showing “very good will and very good reforms,” Athens has been unable to reach a deal with the troika of international creditors in ongoing negotiations that will determine the disbursement of the next tranche of bailout funding of 1 billion euros and a possible lightening of Greece’s debt load.
“The troika is making unacceptable, socially unacceptable, demands, for example that citizens who cannot pay back the credit on their houses because of lack of income, because of unemployment, should be thrown out of their houses and their flats,” Swoboda said in regard to the deadlock between the coalition government and envoys from the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank to lift a ban on home foreclosures.
“It’s absolutely crazy that the European Commission is demanding that European citizens are thrown out of their houses if they can’t pay back because of the economic and social crisis the credit on their homes. This has nothing to do with the reform project in Greece, which is going it’s way. Not everything has been done but many, many steps have been done already,” Swoboda said.
He also accused the European Commission of failing to take steps to make the reform program more socially acceptable for Greeks, aiming his criticism primarily at European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn.
