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The Obama administration will pressure European governments not to let Greece fall out of the eurozone before November’s Presidential elections, British Government sources have suggested.
Representatives from the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission are due to arrive in Athens next month to assess Greece’s reform efforts.
They are expected to report in time for an 8 October meeting of eurozone finance ministers which will decide on whether to disburse Greece’s next €31bn aid tranche, promised under the terms of the bailout for the country.
American officials are understood to be worried that if they decide Greece has not done enough to meet its deficit targets and withhold the money, it would automatically trigger Greece’s exit from the eurozone weeks before the Presidential election on 6 November.
They are urging eurozone Governments to hold off from taking any drastic action before then – fearing that the resulting market destabilisation could damage President Obama’s re-election prospects. European leaders are thought to be sympathetic to the lobbying fearing that, under pressure from his party lin Congress, Mitt Romney would be a more isolationist president than Mr Obama.
Mr Romney uses Greece when highlighting Mr Obama's record on the US budget deficit and national debt.
If this president keeps spending a trillion dollars or more... you're going to see us on the road to Greece and you're going to see a financial crisis down the road. I will not let that happen. - 6 October
The president has also used Greece as a fiscal policy teaching point, saying America's deficit and debt worries are not nearly as severe. But at a White House Greek independence day celebration, he was more effusive.
Our Founding Fathers were students of Greek philosophy and Greek history, drawing on Greek principles to guide our own nation in its earliest days... And to this day the United States and Greece shares a bond rooted in common values and common ideals.
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