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Samaras At Odds With Venizelos

Tonight's meeting between the prime minister Antonis Samaras and government vice president Evangelos Venizelos seems to augur a bad climate between the two main pillars of the government.

Antonis Samaras left his office on foot after the meeting and from his conversation with reporters showed that he was not in the best of moods.

When asked why finance minister Yannis Stournaras' staff saw fit to tax sheep pens and greenhouses, the prime minister answered that "no fiscal benefit can be garnered from such an action."

The barb was not so much aimed at the finance minister himself, but at his advisor professor of economics Nikos Karavitis.

Nikos Karavitis, as head of the Hellenic statistical authority, was at the forefront of fiscal "cooking" so that Greece could enter the eurozone in 2000. Back then, Mr. Kasravitis was very close to then prime minister Kostas Simitis.