Kostas Tsironis/Bloomberg News
Alexis Tsipras, leader of the Syriza party, center, greeted supporters as he arrived for a news conference in Athens on Friday. His proposals no longer sound so far out of the mainstream.
ATHENS — With most of the latest polls showing that his left-leaning party was in a tight race with the New Democracy party for Greece’s election this month, Alexis Tsipras detailed his economic platform Friday, promising his first act would be to annul the terms of the country’s financial rescue packages.
Mr. Tsipras, 37, was only a minor character in Greek politics until recently. But he appears to be rallying this battered nation around his call to fight off Greece’s foreign creditors.
In an hourlong news conference, he described a dozen measures he would take if elected, ranging from extending unemployment benefits to nationalizing banks and delaying payments to creditors. He said he would replace the bailout plan with “a national regeneration plan,” adding that the goal was to reach a “just and viable European solution.”
“We don’t claim that there is plenty of money,” he said. “Greek people are not asking for money. They are asking for work and the ability to make a living.”
Mr. Tsipras’s surprising success in the last elections on May 6, when he came in second, set off a wave of concern across Europe. European leaders responded by all but endorsing candidates from the more mainstream parties that had negotiated and signed the terms of Greece’s bailout.
Three new polls were published on Friday in Athens newspapers. Two showed Mr. Tsipras’s party, Syriza, and the New Democracy party basically tied, while one put Syriza slightly ahead of the conservatives. In the Public Issue poll, published in Kathimerini, Syriza is backed by about 32 percent of the voters and New Democracy by 26 percent. In contrast, according to the poll conducted by Kapa Research for Ta Nea, 26 percent said they would vote for New Democracy, statistically insignificant from the 24 percent for Syriza. Similarly, the Rass poll conducted for Eleftheros Typos found the voters closely divided: about 27 percent for New Democracy and 24 percent for Syriza.
Those are the last surveys expected before the June 17 balloting, as Greek law prohibits opinion polls in the two weeks before general elections.
One measure of the changing landscape here — and Mr. Tsipras’s effect on it — is that his proposals are no longer sounding so far out of the mainstream.
In May, center-right New Democracy and the Socialist Pasok maintained that Greece had no option but to abide by the terms of the bailout or be thrown out of the euro zone. But these days they are sounding more like Mr. Tsipras, who has always said that the deal could be renegotiated without Greece giving up the euro.
Both New Democracy and Pasok are now calling for renegotiating the terms of their agreement with the country’s foreign creditors, known as the “troika” — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund — and making other similar proposals. For instance, the leader of the New Democracy party, Antonis Samaras, has also called for extended unemployment benefits and a reversal of the reduction in the minimum wage.
Speaking to reporters in Washington late on Thursday, a spokesman for the International Monetary Fund said the group was willing to hear “any ideas” that the next Greek government might have for meeting the fiscal targets of the debt deal.
The program set out by Syriza on Friday, though, is unlikely to find a receptive audience.
Measures imposed by the troika, including a 22 percent reduction to the minimum monthly wage of 751 euros, or about $930, and the abolition of collective labor contracts, would be revoked, Mr. Tsipras said. And a moratorium would be imposed on the repayment of Greece’s debt and interest payments until growth is restored. He pledged to stabilize public spending at 43 percent of gross domestic product — below the euro zone average of 46 percent but above the 37 percent demanded by creditors — to raise revenue by taxing the wealthy, to abolish dozens of tax breaks, and to scale back the value-added tax, which falls disproportionately on the poor. “We must stop taxing poverty in this country and start taxing the wealthy who evade tax,” he said.
Alexis Tsipras, leader of the Syriza party, center, greeted supporters as he arrived for a news conference in Athens on Friday. His proposals no longer sound so far out of the mainstream.
ATHENS — With most of the latest polls showing that his left-leaning party was in a tight race with the New Democracy party for Greece’s election this month, Alexis Tsipras detailed his economic platform Friday, promising his first act would be to annul the terms of the country’s financial rescue packages.
Mr. Tsipras, 37, was only a minor character in Greek politics until recently. But he appears to be rallying this battered nation around his call to fight off Greece’s foreign creditors.
In an hourlong news conference, he described a dozen measures he would take if elected, ranging from extending unemployment benefits to nationalizing banks and delaying payments to creditors. He said he would replace the bailout plan with “a national regeneration plan,” adding that the goal was to reach a “just and viable European solution.”
“We don’t claim that there is plenty of money,” he said. “Greek people are not asking for money. They are asking for work and the ability to make a living.”
Mr. Tsipras’s surprising success in the last elections on May 6, when he came in second, set off a wave of concern across Europe. European leaders responded by all but endorsing candidates from the more mainstream parties that had negotiated and signed the terms of Greece’s bailout.
Three new polls were published on Friday in Athens newspapers. Two showed Mr. Tsipras’s party, Syriza, and the New Democracy party basically tied, while one put Syriza slightly ahead of the conservatives. In the Public Issue poll, published in Kathimerini, Syriza is backed by about 32 percent of the voters and New Democracy by 26 percent. In contrast, according to the poll conducted by Kapa Research for Ta Nea, 26 percent said they would vote for New Democracy, statistically insignificant from the 24 percent for Syriza. Similarly, the Rass poll conducted for Eleftheros Typos found the voters closely divided: about 27 percent for New Democracy and 24 percent for Syriza.
Those are the last surveys expected before the June 17 balloting, as Greek law prohibits opinion polls in the two weeks before general elections.
One measure of the changing landscape here — and Mr. Tsipras’s effect on it — is that his proposals are no longer sounding so far out of the mainstream.
In May, center-right New Democracy and the Socialist Pasok maintained that Greece had no option but to abide by the terms of the bailout or be thrown out of the euro zone. But these days they are sounding more like Mr. Tsipras, who has always said that the deal could be renegotiated without Greece giving up the euro.
Both New Democracy and Pasok are now calling for renegotiating the terms of their agreement with the country’s foreign creditors, known as the “troika” — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund — and making other similar proposals. For instance, the leader of the New Democracy party, Antonis Samaras, has also called for extended unemployment benefits and a reversal of the reduction in the minimum wage.
Speaking to reporters in Washington late on Thursday, a spokesman for the International Monetary Fund said the group was willing to hear “any ideas” that the next Greek government might have for meeting the fiscal targets of the debt deal.
The program set out by Syriza on Friday, though, is unlikely to find a receptive audience.
Measures imposed by the troika, including a 22 percent reduction to the minimum monthly wage of 751 euros, or about $930, and the abolition of collective labor contracts, would be revoked, Mr. Tsipras said. And a moratorium would be imposed on the repayment of Greece’s debt and interest payments until growth is restored. He pledged to stabilize public spending at 43 percent of gross domestic product — below the euro zone average of 46 percent but above the 37 percent demanded by creditors — to raise revenue by taxing the wealthy, to abolish dozens of tax breaks, and to scale back the value-added tax, which falls disproportionately on the poor. “We must stop taxing poverty in this country and start taxing the wealthy who evade tax,” he said.
