Greece Sets up Clash With Eurozone Over Debt Measures
ABC News - Jan 28, 2015
Greece's radical new government on Wednesday signaled the country would backtrack or scrap a series of budget measures its eurozone creditor nations had demanded in exchange for bailout loans.
The move fueled market concerns of a tough confrontation with eurozone countries, whose loans are keeping Greece from bankruptcy. Stock and bond markets in Greece plummeted.
Left wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras described the country's bailout budget commitments as "crushing and unobtainable," while his finance minister called the bailout agreements a "toxic mistake."
Previous governments in Athens had committed to achieving high primary budget surpluses — that is, surpluses that do not count the cost of servicing debt — in order to make the country's national borrowings more sustainable.
