Main opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis pointed to a "fourth memorandum" that the Tsipras government signed in the early morning hours of Tuesday, one he charged was "different and harsher" than previous bailouts and one that merely serves to keep the current coalition government in power.
"The government is bringing forth a fourth memorandum without funding, with more burdens for 2018 and higher primary budget surplus (targets) for many more years, while the infamous countervailing measures will apply only if we exceed the goal of a much higher surplus of 3.5 percent (of annual GDP)," Mitsotakis underlined a few hours after the preliminary agreement was announced with the first sunlight of the day.
The president of center-right New Democracy (ND) party said the latest round of austerity measures come "without any written commitment for debt relief and Greece's inclusion in the (ECB) quantitative easing program".
Mitsotakis calculated the latest austerity package at 12.5 billion euros, something he said was 8.5 times higher than what a previous ND coalition government had proposed months before then anti-bailout and anti-austerity SYRIZA rode to power in January 2015.
The former minister again reiterated that the current leftist-rightist coalition government is only interested in remaining in power. "No one asked for these measures from Mr. Tsipras; it's a heavy toll on Mr. Tsipras' credibility."
"... This failure is not the country's failure, we can do better," he told party cadres.
