Athens News Agency: News in English, 11-07-01

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] PM: We did our patriotic duty

[02] EU FinMins to hold teleconference on Sat. afternoon

[03] ND lashes out at FinMin

[01] PM: We did our patriotic duty

Opening a two-day SI Council meeting, Papandreou said: "We took difficult decisions for Greece, doing our patriotic duty to save our country; necessary decisions to save the pensions and salaries..."

Papandreou described as "hubris" the situation that prevailed in Greece in the past, and the way in authority was managed.ana-mpa

He thanked the European governments and peoples, and also the "socialist family", for their support and assistance to Greece.

"In these difficult times the country is going through, we need friends in order to win the wager, and we will win it," the Greek premier said while, referring to protestors who have been "demonstrating peacefully" throughout the country over the last three weeks, he said that they are demanding renovation of democracy.

The Council is attended by 300 representatives of SI member parties from all over the world.

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[02] EU FinMins to hold teleconference on Sat. afternoon

"The meeting has not been cancelled, but has been converted into a tele-conference on Saturday afternoon," said Guy Schuller, spokesman for Juncker who presides over the council of finance ministers of the eurozone member countries, known as the Eurogroup.

Schuller also said that it has not yet been decided whether a statement will be released after Saturday's tele-conference.

The finance ministers are slated to decide the disbursement of the 12 billion euros 5th tranche of the 110 billion euro EU-IMF bailout loan to Greece.

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[03] ND lashes out at FinMin

ND party spokesman Yiannis Mihelakis stated that Venizelos and Bakoyannis, a previous minister, have resorted to an unprecedented misrepresentation of Samaras' statements and to "unacceptable slander", by maintaining that ND will vote against Memorandum II, currently debated in the Eurozone, without having studied it first. ana-mpa

Mihelakis referred to an "impropriety", saying political opponents are unable to challenge Samaras' positions as regards the unconstitutionality of their intention to have Memorandum II passed with a majority of 180 MPs.

The ND spokesman said \ Samaras has clearly stated that if the new Memorandum is in the right direction and is good for the country it will be approved by ND, but if it moves on the wrong direction, like the present memorandum, ND will vote against it -- regardless of the number of votes the government will set as a limit.

Mihelakis also underlined that Venizelos did not utter a word in response to the constitutionality issue raised by Samaras.

"The propaganda practices involving misquotations and slander expose Venizelos irreparably and prove him to be hypocritical when referring to consensus," Mihelakis stressed.

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