Playing Tough, Greece Makes Troika Back Off

Even before Greece?s international lenders began to back off from pressing for more austerity measures, there were signs that the government?s hard line against more pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions was beginning to wear them down. Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, fearing the uneasy coalition of his New Democracy Conservatives and their partner, the PASOK Socialists ? with a thin four-vote majority in Parliament ? couldn?t withstand more social unrest, dug in his heels when envoys from the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund (EU-IMF-ECB) were in Athens to check the progress of reforms. Even a delay in the release of a pending one billion euro ($1.37 billion) installment didn?t make Finance Minister Yannis Stourarnas buckle under pressure from the Troika to speed the pace of delayed reforms.

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