Translation Gaffes and Posturing Are Holding Up Greece's Bailout Talks

Reuters
Alexander Abad-Santos 268 Views Feb 8, 2012

After yesterday's meeting was postponed, Greek party leaders are supposed to meet today to agree on a plan to avoid default, but it looks like a missing translation of the agreement is what's holding the crucial meeting up. According to The Guardian, Georgios Karatzaferis who leads the populist Laos party, didn't receive a translation of the draft agreement in Greek. "They say the transalation won't be ready until 2 PM (12 GMT)," a government source told The Guardian. "The earliest the meeting could take place is around 4:30 PM and I say that hopefuly. Papademos is hoping it will last two or three hours but it's a heavier package than the leaders expected."  It's about that time in Greece right now (4:30ish), and The Guardian now notes that Karatzaferis is threatening not to go to the meeting at all, but they believe it's just political posturing. Greece needs to get its act together.

For a full live-blog of today's meeting head on over to The Guardian.

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