Dignity or Troika?

[Maik]

Defiant Greece at daggers drawn with EU creditors
If Greeks are forced to choose between a restoration of their dignity or continued Troika humiliation, they will chose dignity, says the Greek prime minister

 Relations between Greece and Europe's creditor powers are dangerously close to breaking point. Both sides have issued ultimatums, each insisting angrily on fixed positions and lashing out at each other with barely concealed animosity.

“If they decide to kick us out, the damage will be greater for them,” said Manolis Glezos, the war-time resister who ripped the Nazi flag from the Acropolis in 1941.

Mr Glezos, a Syriza MEP and the party’s venerated elder statesman, told the Daily Telegraph that his movement never wished to take Greece out of monetary union but will not shrink from doing so if EMU authorities insist on suffocating austerity. “You cannot attend the negotiating table without carrying this option along,” he said.

Far from subsiding, the defiant language from Athens is growing louder. "If Europe leaves us in crisis, we will flood it with migrants,” said Panos Kammenos, the defence minister and leader of the Independent Greeks party.

“Too bad for Berlin if there are some Jihadis from Islamic State in that wave of millions. If they strike us, we will strike them,” he told La Repubblica, vowing to give illegal migrants valid documents and open Europe’s Schengen frontiers to all comers.

Germany’s Wolfgang Schauble among others insisted on using the term “Troika” – hated in Greece, and now officially abolished – seemingly wishing to humiliate Syriza.

Almost 70pc of Greeks say they want Syriza to reach an “honourable compromise” with the Eurogroup, though it is hard divine what constitutes “honourable”. A full 27pc already want a return to the drachma.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11460214/Defiant-Greece-at-daggers-drawn-with-EU-creditors.html

Greece told to 'stop wasting time' over debt deal

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31793145

[TonyKath]

Very interesting article for the Torygraph summing up the tensions over government policy.  Tsipras campaigned strongly on "dignity and respect" before the election.  The Troika are now officially the Institutions (οι Δεσμοί) apparently!! Also from the Telegraph Article:

One Syriza MP said the government itself has no idea how this high-stakes brinkmanship will end, but emotions are hardening by the day. “The party has learned quickly over the last three weeks that Europe is not a nice place,” he said.

? Nigel Farage for Deputy Leader of SYRIZA??!

Tony