Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras rejected European warnings that Greeks will be deciding on their future in the eurozone in a referendum on Sunday, saying negotiations would continue for a better deal with international creditors after the vote.
In a televised address yesterday, Tsipras said a report by the International Monetary Fund arguing that Greece’s massive public debt could not be sustained without significant write-downs vindicated his advice to reject the lenders’ terms.
Repeating his assault on European partners he accused of blackmailing and issuing ultimatums to Greece, the leftist leader called for calm ahead of tomorrow’s ballot, as two opinion polls showed the Yes and Nocamps neck-and-neck.
“On Sunday what is at stake is not Greece’s membership of Europe, what is at stake is whether blackmail will lead us to accept the continuation of a policy which the lenders themselves recognise is a dead end,” he said. “On Sunday what is at stake is whether we will give our consent to the slow death of the economy.”
European policymakers fired fresh warnings of the costs of a No vote in a plebiscite called at just eight days’ notice after the breakdown of talks with the European Commission, the IMF and the European Central Bank.
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble dismissed Tsipras’s version that his government would be able to move smoothly to negotiate more favourable terms if Greeks backed his rejection.
“If the Greeks will vote No, the Greek position is dramatically weakened,” Juncker told a news conference.
Schaeuble, a hate figure for Greek opponents of austerity policies, told Bild newspaper: “Greece needs reforms. But I already know now: These would be very difficult negotiations.”
Tsipras is betting Europe will compromise rather than let Greece slip out of the eurozone, even though the continent’s leaders say a No vote would signal its exit. But behind the rhetoric, there were more concrete signs of the pressure Europe can exert on Greece.
Greek Prime Minister repeats his assault on European partners, accusing them of blackmail
The eurozone’s rescue fund, Greece’s largest creditor, said it was reserving the right to call in €130.9 billion of debt ahead of time after Athens defaulted on an IMF loan.
One poll by the respected ALCO institute, published in the Ethnos newspaper yesterday, put the Yes camp on 44.8 per cent against 43.4 per cent for the No vote. But the lead was well within the pollster’s 3.1 percentage point margin of error, with 11.8 per cent saying they are still undecided.
Another survey for Agvi newspaper put the No fractionally head with 43 per cent to 42.5 percent for the Yes and nine per cent undecided.
Given a volatile public mood and a string of recent election results that ran counter to opinion poll predictions, the result is in effect completely open.
With banks shuttered all week, cash withdrawals rationed and commerce seizing up, the vote could decide whether Greece gets another last-ditch financial rescue in exchange for more harsh austerity measures or plunges deeper into economic crisis.
Tsipras opponents have pointed to the fact that the referendum is on a deal that is no longer on the table, accusing him of recklessly endangering the country’s future.
The No campaign has directed much of its venom at Germany, the eurozone’s dominant power and Greece’s biggest creditor.
One poster plastered in central Greece shows a picture of German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble with the slogan: ‘For five years he’s been sucking your blood. Tell him NO now.’