THE Greek Prime Minister, Mr Costas Simitis, said yesterday he would rather quit than bow to demands from farmers and workers staging crippling strikes against his economic policies.
I'd rather go home," he told the monthly magazine Nitro when asked if he would yield to protesters to avoid falling from power. "I am in politics to apply certain ideas about society. My job is to spread the existing money in a socially just way and that is why we must struggle not to succumb to blackmail."
The Socialist Prime Minister was sending a clear message to strikers and farmers blockading the country's roads for 22 days, demanding higher subsidies lower taxes and cheaper fuel.
Talks between the government and farmers ended in failure yesterday as thousands gathered outside parliament to press their demands. "The farmers' roadblocks must be reinforced," Mr Yannis Pattakis, a communist farmer who took part in the talks, said after the meeting.
In the interview, Mr Simitis said Washington was interested in ending Greek Turkish disputes but he warned that Greece would not rush to agree to solutions contrary to its interests.
Farmers, seamen and public sector workers have protested bitterly against the Pasok government's austerity budget, designed to rein in Greek public finances to prepare for the European single currency by 2000 or 2001.
Sailors, for their part, pressed on with their action for the fourth consecutive day, rallying outside the merchant marine ministry at Piraeus, the seaport of Athens. The sailors' strike has crippled Greek ports and stranded some 800 lorries in Piraeus, and dozens of others on the island of Crete.
Meanwhile, the defence ministry has given the merchant marine ministry three warships to provide a shuttle service between islands' so that perishable goods can be delivered.