ATHENS, Greece—The first European official to visit Greece since the country elected a new left-wing government said on Thursday that he expects clashes over how to lighten the country’s bailout—not rash actions from Athens.
European Parliament President Martin Schulz said he had concluded after discussions with 40-year-old Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras that Greece is open to talks.
Tsipras, whose radical left Syriza party won elections on Sunday, has called on Greece’s euro-zone creditors to forgive most of its bailout loans and soften the budget measures it has been asked to make.
Some investors fear that Greece, faced with resistance from the euro zone, might decide to act unilaterally and stop repaying its bailout loans.
“You know that in many open discussions in Europe there is a concern, some concern that Tsipras will follow his own course.
What I have concluded today is that is not the case,” Schulz said, according to a translation of his comments in German. Schulz’s visit comes a day after Greece’s new Cabinet alarmed creditors and rattled the stock market in Athens with promises to renege on key budget commitments made by previous administrations in exchange for €240 billion in loans from the euro zone and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Tsipras said his government was in talks for “an overall European and mutually beneficial solution on matters of common interest,” but that “it is obvious that for these consultations to be effective and conclude in a mutually beneficial manner, time is needed.”
A government official said Tsipras told Schulz that Greece insists on seeking forgiveness for most of the country’s debt—a key Syriza electoral pledge. Tsipras also said he aims to achieve balanced primary budgets, which exclude debt-servicing costs, but will revise downward the previous government’s “unrealistic” targets for primary surpluses until 2020, the official said.
He spoke on condition of anonymity, because he wasn’t authorized to brief the media on the record. Schulz’s visit to Athens was set to be followed on Friday by that of Jeroen Dijsselbloem, chairman of euro-zone finance meetings.
The Greek finance ministry said Dijsselbloem’s visit would effectively mark the start of negotiations with creditors.
Tsipras will make his first foreign visit as prime minister to Cyprus on Monday, and on Tuesday will meet with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in Rome, his office said. Tsipras’s government has said it will no longer negotiate with the debt inspectors from the IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank, known as the troika, but only directly with high-level state officials.
Image credits: AP/Lefteris Pitarakis