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Greek prime minister: No more austerity taxes or bailout money

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said Tuesday that Greece would not seek additional support beyond the 240 billion euros ($335 billion) already granted in bailout packages.

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Thanassis Stavrakis/AP
Greece's Prime Minister Antonis Samaras (r.) leaves the Finance Ministry's General Accounting office after a meeting with officials in Athens, Monday, April 7. The conservative prime minister announced plans to clear VAT arrears, in a move he said would help the country emerge from recession. Greece will tap bond markets in the next three months for the first time since it needed international rescue loans in 2010, the finance minister said last week, after fellow eurozone countries agreed to release more bailout funds.
  • By Staff Associated Press

| ATHENS, Greece

Greece's prime minister says the debt-strapped country will not ask for any additional bailout money and hopes to begin abolishing austerity taxes later this year.

In an interview with private Antenna television, Antonis Samaras said Tuesday that Greece would not seek additional support beyond the 240 billion euros ($335 billion) already granted in bailout packages from other euro zone countries and the International Monetary Fund.

Samaras' conservatives face a strong challenge from the left wing anti-bailout Syriza party, Syriza, which wants to win European Parliament elections in Greece this month — to possibly pressure his government to resign.

The prime minister's Socialist coalition partners have suffered a collapse in popular support since the first bailout agreement four years ago, as the country suffered a mass rise in unemployment and poverty.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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