ND hardliner urges Samaras not to sign pledge - The Best from Greece

Posted on: 23/Nov/2011

A close aide to Antonis Samaras, leader of Greece's New Democracy party, has urged the conservative chief against signing a written pledge for fresh measures as a condition for financial aid.

“If you don't put the brakes on this, then more will come,” Failios Kranidiotis told Skai television early on Wednesday, describing warnings by foreign officials of a Greek default as “paper threats.”

Samaras was told by European Commission President Jose Barroso on Tuesday to quit playing “political games” and drop his refusal to pledge written support for Greek budget cuts as a condition for the next slice of international aid.

“For the European Union and IMF to support, they need to be sure that this is for a sustainable effort,” Barroso said in a press conference with Greece's interim Prime Minister Lucas Papademos in Brussels.

Kranidiotis, a ND hardliner, has been skeptical of the party's decision to back a crisis coalition government with PASOK tasked with meeting the debt-wracked country's urgent obligations.

He said that ongoing pressure on ND to sign a pledge has been orchestrated by domestic rivals in a bid to humiliate the conservative leader and harm the party.

Asked about recent skirmishing between moderate and hardline members of ND, Kranidiotis said the party leadership must punish “anyone who violates the rules and [damages] the party's prospects.”

Kranidiotis last week suggested that liberal politicians like Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Sotiris Hatzigakis were a largely marginal force inside the party.

Hatzigakis, a veteran conservative deputy, was ousted from the party early last week for suggesting that “far right elements” were influencing ND’s decision-making -- a thinly veiled reference to Kranidiotis among others.

source: http://www.ekathimerini.com

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