i*****1
发帖数: 670 | 1 From CNBC
Greece's conservative New Democracy party was barely ahead of radical
leftist Syriza party in an election that could decide whether the country
stays in the euro zone, a joint exit poll by five pollsters showed on Sunday.
The poll showed New Democracy taking between 27.5 percent to 30.5 percent of
the vote, while SYRIZA was just behind with 27-30 percent. They were
followed by the PASOK Socialists taking 10-12 percent of the vote.
Syriza has vowed to tear up the terms of a joint European Union and
International Monetary Fund bailout package keeping Greece from bankruptcy,
potentially sending the country crashing out of Europe's single currency.
New Democracy broadly backs the bailout.
The two parties vying to win have starkly different views about what to do
about the 240 billion euros ($300 billion) in bailout loans that Greece has
been given by international lenders. One wants to tear up the deals and void
the harsh austerity measures demanded by lenders that have caused Greek
living standards to plummet. The other backs the bailout deal but wants to
amend it.
The choice — the most critical in decades — could determine whether Greece
abandons the joint euro currency used by 17 nations and returns to its old
currency, the drachma.
But there are no rules governing a country's exit from the eurozone, and a
Greek exit could spark a panic that other debt-strapped European nations —
Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy— might also have to leave.
That domino scenario — known in economic terms as contagion — could engulf
the euro, causing a global financial panic not unlike the one that gripped
the world in 2008 after the investment firm Lehman Brothers failed in the U.
S.
The vote Sunday was also coming after a difficult week for Spain and Italy,
which saw their borrowing costs soar. Tens of thousands of Italian workers
rallied Saturday in Rome to protest pension cuts, tax hikes and labor
reforms. | m******l
发帖数: 1690 | |
|
