By Magda Panoutsopoulou and Andrew Jay Rosenbaum
ATHENS
“We are close to a basic package agreement with European creditors,” Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said during an epic three-hour interview on Greek TV on Monday evening.
In a broadcast on the private Star network, Tsipras explained the state of play between the Greek government, its European creditors and the Greek people, and why outspoken Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis will play a limited role in the negotiations in the future.
The Greek government needs funds from its European creditors in order to keep the country running to mid-May.
Tsipras assured Greeks that the conditions that must be met for the country to receive bailout funds are close to being agreed on. These include the economic reforms that its European creditors are demanding.
The newly installed premier, giving his first major TV interview since his January election, indicated that privatizing state industries – something his radical leftist Syriza-led coalition had initially balked at – was back on the table.
“Privatizations are part of the basic package agreement we are making,” Tsipras said.
Asked why no quick solution with creditors had been possible, the prime minister said that “trust between us had to be established first” as well as “an understanding that we had a mandate from the Greek people.”
Syriza won power after a campaign opposing the bailout and the austerity package despised by Greeks but insisted on by Greece’s creditors – explaining why the issue of trust has been so high on the list of potential roadblocks to saving the country.
One of the most tangible manifestations of this trust, or lack of, has been the presence of Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, at least from the point of view of the creditors.
Varoufakis had consistently refused to cooperate with technical committees from institutional creditors such as the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Nor has he been willing to make the kind of hard-hitting economic reforms that creditors are demanding.
According to reports in German magazine Der Spiegel on Monday, Varoufakis antagonized other finance ministers to the point where some would not be in the same room as him and there was a reported proposal to communicate via telephone.
This led to Tsipras ringfencing Varoufakis’ role in the negotiations. He has now been effectively replaced by Deputy Foreign Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, who replaced Varoufakis’ representative Nikos Theocarakis.
Describing Varoufakis an economist with integrity and an “asset” for Greece, Tsipras nevertheless added that “negotiations don’t belong to one person.”
Furthermore, he failed to defend his finance minister against the barrage of criticism he has faced. "My aim is not to beautify the situation,” he told the cameras. “There is a negative atmosphere and I will accept it but this is part of the negotiations, accepting criticism from the other side.”
He also hinted at his frustration with those calling the shots on Greece’s economic recovery.
“It is difficult to negotiate in a different framework with people who had been used to negotiating with memorandums – this is their baby and they don’t want to kill it.”
The memorandum he was referring to was the 2010 agreement on conditions for economic reform between Greece and the European creditors.
But, adding a note of optimism, he said: "We continue to believe and to hope that logic will prevail on all sides.
"Our mission is to put an end to the bleeding of this country – we are bleeding so the Greek people stop bleeding."
Tsipras also addressed another international thorn in the flank of his government – the potential release of two members of the November 17 terrorist group, which spent two decades killing businessmen, Western diplomats and U.S. service personnel.
Syriza has pushed through legislation that would allow Savvas Xiros to be released from prison and serve the rest of his life prison sentence at home on an electronic tag as part of reforms to treat prisoners more humanely.
The U.S. is vehemently opposed to such a move, with Ambassador David Pearce describing the law as a “profoundly unfriendly act.”
However, Tsipras denied rumors that Greek relations with the U.S. have become tense.
"Democracy does not take revenge and is not afraid," Tsipras said, adding that Xiros is not a danger to democracy due to the injuries he sustained when a bomb exploded in his hands.
