Greece Bailout Talks - The Main Actors In a Modern Day Epic

[mother earth]

The Syriza-led coalition’s long fight to end years of austerity by striking a deal with the troika is nearing its end. Here are the main players of the eurozone crisis

Greece is almost entirely friendless as it enters the final phase of talks over a multibillion-pound rescue deal. The prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, was elected to end austerity, but he has no money, and few allies.

Athens has tried for the last four months to reverse six years of post-crash austerity policies while extracting a better deal from the EU – and in the process upset almost everybody who might have had the power and inclination to help.

If Tsipras has any friends left in the eurozone, they are a diminishing bunch, and to be found mainly in Brussels rather than in the national capitals. Sympathy for the radical leftist Syriza-led government, which was never overwhelming, has shrunk sharply and turned into undisguised hostility.

Greece owes €320bn (£234bn) to the European commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank following bailouts in 2010 and 2012. The troika of lenders insisted on a broad set of reforms and public spending cuts as the price for the loans under a programme that ran out in February and was extended until the end of June.

MORE:
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/09/greece-bailout-talks-the-main-actors-in-a-modern-day-epic

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Nice info piece to help follow the situation.