Greece accelerates on the election of the new president of the Republic and the government is in danger of falling. Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has brought forward the first vote for the Head of State to December 17, but has yet to solve the problem of numbers: to elect the president, a qualified majority of 180 votes out of 300 is needed and at the moment the Executive of national unity he has only 154.
If a quorum is not reached for three consecutive votes, Greece will go to the polls between January 18 and the beginning of February. And, at the moment, Syriza is leading the polls, an alternative left party led by Alexis Tsipras, accredited with about 32% of the votes, with a margin of advantage of between three and six percentage points over the centre-right of Nea Demokratia. Tsipras has already said that, in case of victory, he will declare the agreements with the Troika null and void and will ask for the convening of a European conference to cut the debt of the countries in crisis.
To improve its image and avoid this scenario, the Conservative government had announced its intention to raise 9 billion in 2015 directly on the capital market, exiting the IMF assistance program by the end of 2014, ahead of schedule march, which provided for the conclusion of the aid in 2016 (the EU program will end at the end of the year).
The exit strategy would have allowed Samaras to put an end to the Troika visits, but the ESM (European Stability Mechanism) would have accompanied the process with precautionary credit lines to be activated in case Greece had "need more funds". Basically, Samaras would have continued to collect international aid without however being forced to periodically receive the representatives of the Troika, so unpopular in the eyes of the electorate.
In the end, however, the Premier was forced to admit that the Troika bailout plan will not end at the end of the year, “but will continue for a few more months. The positions of the EU, the ECB and the IMF and ours have become somewhat closer, but differences still remain on the latest measures to be taken”. In essence, Brussels wants a correction of the accounts of 2,5 billion next year as well, while Greece calls for a halt to austerity.
In the wake of this news, the Athens Stock Exchange index was down 6% today by mid-morning, with the banking sector down 8,8%, while the 7,72-year bond yield was up 7,34%. from yesterday's close to XNUMX%.
