Greece against austerity

More than 61% of Greek voters rejected yesterday the bailout conditions in the country’s government debt crisis, proposed by the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank.

The referendum marks a great victory of anti-austerity government led by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who announced the referendum last Saturday address when it became clear that, after months of negotiations, both parties still differed on new budget cuts demanded by the creditors in return for emergency funds.

After the announcement of the results, he has declared that he is now ready to resume talks immediately, “but this time the issue of debt will be on the negotiating table. In the victory speech, Mr Tsipras said that “The mandate you’ve given me does not call for a break with Europe, but rather gives me greater negotiating strength”, sounding a little more concilatory towards his eurozone partners than in recent weeks.

After the vote, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis resigned: “Soon after the announcement of the referendum results, I was made aware of a certain preference by some Eurogroup participants, and assorted “partners”, for my “absence” from its meetings; an idea that the Prime Minister judged to be potentially helpful to him in reaching an agreement. For this reason I am leaving the Ministry of Finance today”, he has declared on his personal blog. Meanwhile, greek banks will be closed until the end of the week and people cannot take out more than €60 a day from cash machines.

Europe now looks at the meeting between the leaders of Germany and France, that will forerun the extraordinary  meeting of Eurogroup finance ministers, in order to know the answer of the European Union.