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Europe's endgame?

Reading last night that the Greek parliament had voted to support the Troika's demand for renewed and deeper austerity measures, with 20% unemployment and nearly half of those between the age of 16 and 25 unemployed you know this is going to end well! (sarcasm).  This morning, the leader of the New-Democracy Party (the likely winner of the April elections), said that he wanted to renegotiate the deal with Europe... less then 24 hours after the deal was inked.

Reminds me of an old story; a friend started his working life at ACDI (Canadian developmental agency -- working mostly in Africa), he was dealing with a rather unsavoury type (President for life kind of guy) and as soon as they had signed a loan agreement; this President asked:  "Is it too early to start renegotiating the repayment schedule?" To his credit my friend soon left government employ -- since he had reported his conversation, and his boss had told him to "leave it alone".

Back to Greece, it would seem to me that Samaras idea here was to torpedo the "next tranche payment" while having voted with the government --- forcing a Greek exit before he takes over; being the clean up guy rather than the guy who lead to an exit in the summer or autumn (this game has only one outcome). I would suspect that Merkel is rather pissed right now.  She's the boss now that Sarkosy is in real trouble at home (he will probably lose the presidential elections in May).  March 20th is still the big day, Greek politicians are still playing game -- one hopes that they've got a Plan B in place.


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