Papoulias on emergency government to avert elections

Posted on May 14, 2012

Greece’s Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos on Sunday said he felt “limited optimism” after talks led by President Carolos Papoulias on forging an emergency government to avert elections.Venizelos told party cadres that the talks with conservative leader Antonis Samaras and radical leftist leader Alexis Tsipras came to a “dead end,” indicating that hopes now fall on the cooperation of a smaller pro-European leftist party.
New Democracy leader Samaras said separately that Syriza, which strongly opposes the EU-IMF bailout deal signed by Greece, had refused to join or back a coalition government, even if it pledged to “renegotiate” the loan agreement.
“I made every effort to secure universal cooperation,” Samaras told reporters.
“Syriza not only refuses to accept the formation of a viable government, but also to give a vote of tolerance to a government that would renegotiate the terms of the loan agreement,” he said.
Venizelos, Samaras and Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras had met with Papoulias for 90 minutes.
Papoulias was to meet at 3:30 pm (local time) with the head of the nationalist Independent Greeks party, who also opposes the bailout agreement.
The leaders of the Communists, the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn group and the small Europhile Democratic Left party were next in line for talks with the president.
The political impasse must be overcome by Thursday, when parliament convenes, or new elections will have to be called in June.
The Democratic Left has previously said it would not join a government made up of only Pasok and New Democracy to the exclusion of Syriza.
The country’s international creditors have warned that no new loan payments will be forthcoming if Greece falters on structural reforms required to put the economy in order after decades of overspending by the state.