Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 15-02-05

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

CONTENTS

[01] New MPs to be sworn in on Thursday

[02] FinMin Varoufakis: The only thing we want is some time

[03] Athens Stock Exchange opening: Hefty losses

[01] New MPs to be sworn in on Thursday

On Friday, the deputies will elect the President and the Vice-Presidents of the Parliament, while in the next three days the new government will make its policy announcements. This procedure will be concluded on Monday night, when deputies will be asked to give a vote of confidence to the new government.

[02] FinMin Varoufakis: The only thing we want is some time

Varoufakis said Greece was responsible for a lack of progress with reforms but that was not why the euro zone was experiencing deflation: "We're canaries in a coal mine. This one is very weak so he dies first but he isn't responsible for the poisonous gases" he said underlining that Greece is the first domino but is not responsible for the domino phenomenon. "It is a systemic crisis and we must deal with it systemically and not one against the other and to point our finger and say: what are you doing or what is he doing. We must think as European and to stick together and to restart the political tools" he said and referring to his meeting on Thursday with his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble it is important a modus vivendi to be found because there is a huge gap between what the Greek government thinks and say and what

others say that it thinks and says.

He rejected the populism charges explaining that the government did not promise everything to everyone. However, he expressed the certainty that Mr. Schaeuble and Mr. Sapin (French Minister) well as every decent European will agree that is not right to have thousands of Greeks to go to bed hungry, as a result of Europe and the Greek government's mistakes in dealing with the deflation crisis.

He supported that the crisis in Greek is not Greek but a crisis of the eurozone and asks for solidarity from the country's partners in order the crisis that costs to everyone to be faced and warned of the danger of nationalism referring to ultra-right party Golden Dawn rise which as he said is the third largest political power in Greece.

Varoufakis has been hopping across European capitals this week to win support for Greece's plan to restructure debt and end austerity, which would involve swapping existing government debt for growth-linked or perpetual bonds. Referring to the haircut of the Greek debt he noted that as the European do not like the word 'haircut' the Greeks do not like the words "programme" and 'troika' and asked for solidarity and a chance in order the new government to reform the country.

"We need to convince them we're serious about it and they need to give Greece the chance to flourish in Europe," he said.

[03] Athens Stock Exchange opening: Hefty losses

The FTSE/ASE Large Cap index for blue chip and heavily traded stocks was down 6.85 percent, and the FTSE/ASE Mid Cap index was down 5.02 percent.

All individual sector indices were moving downwards, with the biggest losses in Banks (-21.91 percent), Personal & Household (-11.59 percent) and Utilities (-7.75 percent).

Of the stocks traded, 11 were up, 47 were down and 7 were unchanged.

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