(Reuters) Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras pleaded in the European Parliament on Wednesday for a fair deal to keep his country in the euro zone after EU leaders gave him five days to come up with reforms.
“I honestly believe that it’s the sovereign right of any government to decide to increase taxation on profit-making businesses and not affect the lowest possible pensions and cut back further there to achieve those objectives,” Tsipras told the packed chamber in Strasbourg.
But acknowledging Greece’s own responsibility for its plight, the 40-year-old leftist premier conceded that overdue changes would have to be made.
“Indeed there are things in Greece’s past that are not right and must be abolished. For example – early retirements,” he said.
The young prime minister said he was determined to fix years of bad government as well as reverse the increasing inequalities caused by five years of creditor-imposed austerity.
“We want a sustainable programme, because we want to be in the position to repay the loans that we’ve accepted. And when we ask to reduce the debt, we are asking for that because we want to be able to pay this back. We don’t want to be forced time and time again to accept new loans to pay off the old ones,” he said.
Greece promised to implement pension and tax reforms as early as next week as the first step to securing a three-year rescue loan to cover debt obligations, according to a letter requesting the funding from European partners on Wednesday.
In the letter sent to the European bailout fund released by the government, Greece also pledges to honour its financial obligations and detail by Thursday reforms proposals for evaluation by the creditors.
“We all understand that this debate is not exclusively about one country. It’s about the future of our common construction: the euro zone and Europe,” said Tsipras.
Winding up for himself after more than three hours of argument, Tsipras appealed across the partisan divides, noting he had backing from his own opponents in Athens to keep Greece in the euro. “We have ideological differences, we are divided on issues,” he said. “But this is a crucial time to join forces.”
“All of the political forces in Greece came around the same table and we came up with a framework on the basis of which tomorrow we are going to once again come up with some very specific proposals for a fair and sustainable solution, which will bring about fair reforms as well.”
If experts from the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund deem the Greek proposals viable, euro zone finance ministers would meet on Saturday to recommend opening negotiations with Athens, and a special summit of the 28-nation EU would meet on Sunday to approve an aid plan.
Before then, Greece is supposed to rush a first wave of measures through parliament, euro zone sources said, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she would ask parliament in Berlin to authorise the opening of loan negotiations provided the Greek measures are deemed satisfactory.
Euro zone sources said one key question is whether the Greek reform package will be more ambitious than the spending cuts, tax increases and modest reforms that Greek voters rejected on Sunday in a referendum on a previous bailout plan.