Eurozone : Greece must repay loans

BERLIN, Jan. 26 (UPI) -- European leaders said Monday Greece will be expected to honor its debts, even in the face of a weekend election in which an anti-austerity party was swept into power. The left-wing Syriza party, which campaigned on a platform seeking a refinancing of a 240 billion Euro ($270 billion) loan, struck a deal with the right-wing and anti-austerity Independent Greeks party to govern the country.

Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras was sworn in as prime minister Monday. His party contended the agreed-upon financial bailout is the cause of Greece's slow economy and 28 percent unemployment rate, and pledged to restructure the loans with the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission.

It was made clear Monday that Greece will be expected to honor its commitments.

"We believe Greece has accepted terms that are not off the table after the election day," said Steffen Seibert, spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"There are rules, there are agreements," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble said, and the Eurozone chief of finance ministers, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said, "I don't think there is a lot of support for that (a restructuring) in the Eurozone."

Creditors have offered an extension of the existing bailout program, and nothing more. The division between Tsipras and Greece's creditors is so large some see a Greek exit from the Euro within months, and the margin of victory by the Syriza party has some in Europe concerned it could empower leftist movements in other European countries, The Wall Street Journal speculated.