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Summary Greek PM Antonis Samaras says Greece's democracy is in danger without urgent financial aid.
Greece is teetering on the edge of collapse with its society at risk of disintegrating unless the countrys near-empty public coffers are shored up with urgent financial aid, the countrys prime minister has warned.Almost three years after the eruption of Europes debt drama in Athens, the economic crisis engulfing the nation has become so severe that democracy itself is now imperiled, Antonis Samaras said.Greek democracy stands before what is perhaps its greatest challenge, Samaras told the German business daily Handelsblatt in an interview published hours before the announcement in Berlin that Angela Merkel will fly to Athens next week for the first time since the outbreak of the crisis.Resorting to highly unusual language for a man who weighs his words carefully, the 61-year-old politician evoked the rise of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party to highlight the threat that Greece faces, explaining that society is threatened by growing unemployment, as happened to Germany at the end of the Weimar Republic.Mounting anti-austerity rage before a new round of sweeping EU-IMF-mandated austerity measures appears to have caught the government off-guard, with officials voicing fears over the ability of Samarass fragile coalition to survive.The unprecedented storming of Greeces defence ministry by hundreds of protesting dockworkers on Thursday – a breach of security not seen in modern times – has especially unnerved officials. On Friday, Samaras lashed out at those who dont understand the meaning of law and order.Many officials fear the conservative-led alliance is being pushed too far in negotiations that have dragged on for weeks over the latest €13.5bn package of austerity measures that is the price of further aid. Growing speculation that Greece will be kept waiting until after the US elections in November before it receives its next disbursement of aid has added to the pressure.On Friday EU officials made clear it was highly unlikely a decision would be made on the payment – vital to kickstarting the cash-starved economy – at an upcoming EU summit on 18 October. The Athens government is also appealing for a two-year extension of the debt-choked countrys fiscal adjustment programme in an effort to ameliorate the impact of further punishing austerity.
