ATHENS: Greece Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras maintained his refusal to consider further pension cuts to unlock financial aid after meeting Austria’s Chancellor, who traveled to Athens seeking an eleventh-hour solution to keeping Greece in the eurozone.
Werner Faymann – one of the European leaders most sympathetic to the Greek government’s demands for an end to austerity – met with Tsipras for nearly two hours on Wednesday at the prime minister’s office in Athens. But there was little sign of movement from Tsipras who sees further pension cuts to low earners, a core component of demands for more economic reforms from Greece’s international lenders, as a red line his leftist SYRIZA party will not cross.
“The margins for new cuts in pensions have been exhausted. We can’t understand the obsession of the lenders with pension cuts,” Tsipras told reporters after the meeting. “If we don’t have an honorable compromise and an economically viable solution, we will take the responsibility to say no to the continuation of a catastrophic policy.” Faymann coordinated his visit with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
