Cornered government could seek early elections

The government's fear that a compromise between the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to secure the latter's participation in the Greek bailout program will lead to a new batch of measures in 2018 through 2020 has prompted Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to revive the prospect of snap polls.

Tsipras was apparently hoping that the IMF would sit out the negotiations of the second review of the country's third bailout, thus allowing the government to secure its key aim of debt relief without having to achieve primary surpluses of the order of 3.5 percent after 2018.

However, the signals coming from Berlin indicate that a different course is being mapped out as German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble is insisting that the second review must be concluded in tandem with an agreement over the continued participation of the IMF in the Greek bailout program....