Greece sinks in deeper crisis amid rescue deal doubts

Page last updated at 07:03 GMT, Wednesday, May 9, 2012 - 12:03 EST

AFP:

All eyes are on Syriza head Alexis Tsipras, who has two more days to form a coalition government

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Greece could be forced to leave the eurozone if it fails to abide by EU and IMF loan commitments, a government economic advisor warned Wednesday as Athens raised prospects of renegotiating a bailout deal.

"If we say no to everything, we leave the eurozone," said Gikas Hardouvelis, economic advisor to outgoing Prime Minister Lucas Papademos.

Voters roundly rejected austerity measures in Sunday's elections, booting out a coalition by the two mainstream parties and leaving the radical left-wing Syriza party charged with forming a government.

Its leader Alexis Tsipras was planning to write Wednesday to the highly indebted nation's international lenders telling them that the country would renege on its austerity commitments.

Hardouvelis said on Skai Radio that Greece "has room for renegotiation" of austerity measures that it had agreed to take by 2015 under the bailout deal, "but we should not oversell it and think that suddenly something has changed in Europe because the people here have shouted no".

Read the whole story: AFP