For the second time in a few short months we are amazed to learn that beggars can be choosers. The Greek pseudo-coalition between ND, Pasok, which promptly determined it would only be part of a coalition if Syriza joined, then even promptlier completely forget what it had said hours ago after Syriza said "no way, Jose", and some other party with the word "Democracy" in its name, are in deep discussions over what conditions they should give Europe in exchange for a coalition government. That's right: the Greek coalition government is debating over a set of demands to hand over to Europe in order to form a government which will last at most weeks.
From Bloomberg [4]: "Greece’s Democratic Left set seven conditions for joining the government, including extending the deficit-cutting timeline to 2017 from 2014 and reversing structural overhauls such as cuts to the minimum wage and pensions. The Pasok Socialist party broadly agreed with those demands." If everyone else is also losing the plot line here and openly confuses cause and effect... you are not alone. Because while it would appear that for Greeks to have such a high set of expectations from Merkel, the Chancellor would be expected to have actually agreed with any of these. Because obviously she hasn't: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought to damp speculation that the terms of Greece’s bailout might be relaxed. “We should very tightly keep to the rules and it’s obvious that the reforms that were agreed in the past were the right thing and have to be implemented,” Merkel told reporters today at a summit of world leaders in Mexico." But hey, if Venizelos can mask his flip flopping by somehow justifying it with a condition that was never met in the first place, and if the Greeks, more than half of whom voted against the bailout, are dumb enough to fall for this, then they deserve all the continued pillaging (including gold), that Germany will "bail them out" with.
More:
“Agreement on a policy roadmap is the definitive point to form a government,” Fotis Kouvelis of the Democratic Left, the third part of the planned coalition, said in Athens today. “The process is speeding up. It is possible that in the next few hours, or within the day, a government can be decide.
This is not to be confused with the same promise of imminent government formation floated on Sunday... and Monday...
“Forming a government is tied to the need to form a national negotiating team to ensure the unfavorable terms of the bailout are revised, the terms that were imposed on us, against our will at many points in the first phase of negotiations,” said Evangelos Venizelos of Pasok, who as finance minister from June 2011 to March 2012 negotiated the second aid package.
Venizelos told reporters today he would agree to join a
coalition with New Democracy and Democratic Left and that the
government should be formed no later than midday tomorrow..
It would actually help if Veni had some, any, leverage, with which to make it seem that his "demands" for a coalition have a snowball's chance in hell of even being read, let alone granted.
For more frontal lobe hemmorhage-inducing "logic [4]" read here.