Popular Unity

Athens has drafted a "Plan B" in case the Eurozone turns down the latest bailout request of PM Alexis Tsipras, Greek Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis has said.

"Lack of many from the EU is not the end of the world. We have other sources," Lazafanis told Rossiya 24 TV.

Lafazanis failed to elaborate.

“The institutions want to annihilate the country and our people,” was the high-pitched statement uttered on Thursday by one top SYRIZA government minister who heads up the ruling party’s “internal opposition”.

Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis repeated to protothema.gr his standing triptych: “the country cannot tolerate more austerity; needs greater liquidity and a deep debt cut”.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was in St. Petersburg on Thursday for talks on energy cooperation, particularly the country’s interest in extending the “Turkish stream” pipeline through the country, the so-called “Greek stream”.

Dissent within SYRIZA over the prospect of a compromise with creditors bringing more austerity measures surfaced over the weekend with the party?s radical Left Platform proposing that Greece stop paying its creditors if they continue with ?blackmailing tactics,? and seek an ?alternative plan.?

Ruling SYRIZA party’s apparent “soul searching” vis-à-vis the dilemma of “compromise for cash” or “no retreat” in the face of creditors’ conditions was played out at a marathon session of the radical leftist party’s central committee on Sunday.

Having returned from the European Union leaders? summit in Riga on Friday, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is due to meet with SYRIZA members on Saturday to brief them on the course of negotiations with the country?s lenders.

One of the leading questions that has dominated the political and media discourse of Greece is: who is Alexis Tsipras? 

Greece wants to become a "pluralistic energy hub in the region" with a multi-level and independent energy policy based exclusively on national interests, cooperation and energy security in the region and Europe," Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis said on Friday after talks with Amos Hochstein, a US special envoy for international energy relations.

There were signs of friction between coalition partners SYRIZA and Independent Greek on Thursday, after three SYRIZA cabinet ministers submitted to Parliament an emergency amendment that could facilitate the process of constructing a mosque in Athens.

Productive Reconstruction, Environment and Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis said that "meetings he had in Moscow and their results may mark a new era in the two countries energy, economic and political relations.