THE scene
is familiar: burly Greek bodyguards hustle a trio of foreign bureaucrats into
the finance ministry through a side entrance to avoid a cluster of
anti-austerity protesters shouting “troika go home”.
After almost six months of talks the
stand-off is still unresolved. Greece has implemented only about half the
measures it signed up to last summer, say European Union (EU) officials. The
troika returned to Athens on February 24th, intending to reach a deal that
could be approved at a meeting of the euro-zone finance ministers on March
10th. That would unlock another sizeable tranche of bail-out funding, enabling
Greece to repay €9.3 billion ($12.8 billion) of bonds maturing in May, and
start planning a return to international financial markets with a modest bond
issue later this year.
Disputes over liberalising the market for
fresh milk and allowing supermarkets to sell non-prescription drugs underline
how the fragile coalition government led by Antonis Samaras, the centre-right
prime minister, is held hostage by interest groups. Other disagreements grab
fewer headlines but could do more harm to Greece’s chances of an economic
turnaround this year. According to the central bank, stress tests on four big
Greek lenders showed they will need about €6 billion in fresh capital to stay
solvent. But the IMF has come up with a mind-boggling €20 billion estimate for
recapitalising the banks, implying that Greece will be unable to avoid a third
international bail-out. (The ECB will perform its own stress tests later this
year.)
Yet the outlook is not all gloomy. The
country’s recession slowed last year, with the economy shrinking by 3.7%
compared with the troika’s forecast of 4%. Finance ministry officials seem
confident that Eurostat, the European Commission’s statistical arm, will
confirm an unprecedented primary budget surplus (before interest payments) of
€1.5 billion in 2013.
Another record year for tourism is forecast,
driven by a recovery in the EU and more bookings from Russian and Chinese
visitors. After months of tough negotiations with the Greek state gas utility,
Russia’s Gazprom has agreed to cut natural-gas prices by around 15%, backdated
to last July. This should result in price cuts of around 12% for hard-pressed
Greek consumers.
Mr Samaras still holds a lead as “most
suitable prime minister” over Alexis Tsipras, the radical opposition leader,
according to opinion polls. Yet his New Democracy party consistently lags a few
points behind the Syriza party under Mr Tsipras. The centre-right has lost
voters to Golden Dawn, a neo-Nazi party, whose leaders are in jail accused of
running a criminal gang. At the same time, Syriza is attracting a steady stream
of former supporters of the PanHellenic Socialist Movement, the junior partner
in the governing coalition.
Elections in May for the European
Parliament, regional governors and local mayors will show how popular Mr
Tsipras is with voters. Syriza officials are already eyeing the presidential
vote next March, when Mr Tsipras may have a chance to trigger a general
election if parliament fails to elect a new president to replace Karolos
Papoulias. With the governing coalition almost 30 votes short of the required
three-fifths majority, Syriza’s moment may come at that point.
(Πηγή: www.economist.com)
