Greece readies budget, awaits inspectors
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Greeces new national unity government submitted the countrys 2012 austerity budget to parliament Friday. Its the first task in meeting the terms of the countrys bailout and avoiding bankruptcy.
New leader, Lucas Papademos, must get the rival parties in his coalition to cooperate in persuading EU and IMF lenders to release a latest instalment of emergency financing. However, one point of contention is sure to be a refusal by the conservative New Democracy party, that is to agree on to do whatever is needed to meet the terms of a 130 billion euro bailout agreed last month.
Greeces lenders have said that without such written assurances by all the major political forces, they will release neither the latest instalment nor funding under the new bailout.
A troika source says, inspectors from the IMF, EU and the European Central Bank will arrive in Athens today for talks on releasing the critical eight billion euro instalment.
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