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The visits of the supervisory Troika to Athens are always followed with great interest. It is not only because the future of Greece depends on the lenders’ opinions and mood but also because the local politicians use the visits of the representatives of the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank as an excuse to play out the game of chess they have been up to.
    It all started in the early morning hours of Thursday, when the government had surprisingly decided to raid the occupied building of the Greek national radio. Not that it has no right to do so. It has. Only it could have done so 10 days or 4 months ago. It had however preferred to make this move now, when the talks with the lenders have stalled and their representatives are trapped in Athens.
    The raid in the building of ERT has achieved two things. First, it has provoked protests against the government policy, which is usually the task of the trade unions but their already subsiding protests had been totally dispersed by the autumn storm on Wednesday. So, this had led to the surprising move in the early hours of Thursday.
    The second effect is that this act has awaken the drowsy opposition, whose leader Alexis Tsipras was touring Texas, USA, as a lecturer earlier this week. The surprising move of the government, namely the raid in the building of the national radio, has produced the expected reaction, namely the no confidence motion against the government submitted by SYRIZA. So, the typical scenery of the visits of the Troika has been arranged again, featuring protests in the streets, quarrels in the parliament and a government which, apparently, is about to fall.
    Officially, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission are not inclined to comment on the political situation in Greece but, unofficially, they admit that they were surprised.

    Their representatives in Athens, Paul Thomsen, Matthias Morse and Klaus Masuch were supposed to meet today, Friday, 8 November, with Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras but the meeting has been postponed for Sunday at their request. They have requested data for 2014 budget from the audit office and the Ministry of Employment to compare and process them in order to find out why the lenders expect financial hole of 2.9 billion euro and the Greek government a budget surplus.
    The developments will culminate on Sunday when we will obtain the answers to both questions, namely, whether the government will survive and whose budget estimates are correct. Samaras’ government is pressing the lenders to cancel Greece’s debt but Germany is steadfastly refusing to do so.