In Greece, Prime Minister Lucas Papademos announced that his country has failed to unite all political parties to support the IMF and EU proposition for debt bailout package. The new austerity measures failed to be agred upon by a unanimous vote of his coalition. After meeting senior officials from all three parties for a marathon 7 hour meeting they all left the room empty handed.
According to sources, the most significant isse that could not be agreed upon was proposed pension cuts. Immediately following the talks, Mr Papademos met with officials from the “troika” of bailout officials which then itself ended many hours later without positive report.
A statement issued by the prime minister’s office said the aim of the meeting with the troika – representatives from the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – was to “conclude the agreement” before Thursday’s meeting of eurozone finance ministers.
Apprantely the pension cuts sticking point, which is worth 600m euros to the economy caused major problems, the result being a request for the troika and the prime minister to redraft this section of the reform package. The same proposal includes a 20% minimum wage reduction and the firing of a minimum of 15,000 public sector employees.
In other news, The USD spent most of the trading session trading down against the majority of its main currency pairs including the EUR & GBP. Analysts report that market traders feared supporting the USD ahead of impending news on the Greek debt bailout package the same day.
