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EU 'shooting party' targets message at Greece, risks backlash

By Paul Taylor and Ingrid Melander

BRUSSELS/PARIS (Reuters) - Euro zone governments are hammering home a series of coordinated messages to Greece in hopes of persuading voters to disavow Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and vote "yes" to a debt deal with creditors on Sunday, EU officials and diplomats say.

Yet in doing so, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande risk sparking a backlash against foreign interference in a country where conspiracy theories about the machinations of outside powers have a rich history.

The key messages are: Sunday's vote is about whether you stay in the euro zone or return to the drachma; the door is still open to a "generous" deal if you want it; if you vote "no", you are casting Greece into a dark, uncertain future; the euro zone can cope with a Greek exit if necessary.

While conveying the same messages himself, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi warned fellow leaders on Tuesday against turning the issue into a personality contest.

"The risk is that the referendum becomes a Merkel against Tsipras match. It would be a mistake and that is what Athens wants," he told Italian business daily Il Sole 24 Ore.

"That is why I think my friend Juncker made a mistake to launch an electoral campaign in favor of a 'Yes' vote. This is not a referendum on European leaders. This is a run-off vote: euro or drachma."

Officials familiar with the intense exchanges between Brussels, Berlin and Paris say that the euro zone's top leaders and their aides are closely synchronizing their statements and actions.

"You will have noticed the shooting party," a source in Paris involved in the exchanges said.

"We're all trying to make crystal clear to the Greeks that this is not about the details of the bailout terms: it's about Greece's future in the euro zone and the European Union," a Brussels official said.

ECB JOINS GREXIT CHORUS

Although the European Central Bank makes a point of steering clear of politics and sticking to its roles of monetary policy and banking supervision, its "foreign minister" joined the chorus of officials warning of the danger of a "Grexit".

Up to now the ECB's line has been that euro membership is forever and there can be no question of a country leaving.

However Benoit Coeure, the ECB executive board member for external relations, departed from that dogma in an interview with Les Echos daily published on Tuesday.

"A Greek exit from the euro zone, so far a theoretical issue, can unfortunately not be ruled out any more," he said, adding that this was the consequence of Athens' decision to end the bailout talks and call a referendum.

An official at one euro zone finance ministry said the communication was being coordinated orally with counterparts in other capitals, though not in writing.

"They try to clarify the message," the official said, referring to the geopolitical consequences. "European leaders are very clear, they want to continue negotiations on Greece."

Juncker's emotional appeal on Monday to vote "yes", conveying a personal sense of betrayal and declaring his love for the Greek people, partly reflected a personal attachment to the integrity of the euro zone as one of its architects.

The former Luxembourg prime minister, who has been involved with European monetary union since before the 1991 Maastricht summit agreed to establish a single currency, has spent hours negotiating with Tsipras in person and on the telephone.

He makes no secret of his belief that Tsipras deliberately distorted the creditors' proposals, first to parliament, and then when the leftist premier urged voters to reject them at the ballot box.

"The reason why I am addressing the press and via you the Greek people: they have to know what is the truth. They have to know what is on the table," he told a news conference on Monday.

While the main EU leaders have adopted the same carrot and stick approach, the French and the European Commission have been notably more enthusiastic about the carrots, and the Germans more zealous in brandishing the stick, with the notable exception of Merkel herself.

EU officials said each leader had to take account of domestic political pressures in calibrating the EU message.

Hollande and his ministers, all center-left Socialists, need to appease the French left which is broadly sympathetic to Greece, while Merkel needs to keep onside with her own German conservatives, many of whom think Greece has lied, cheated and sinned and deserves to be ejected from the euro zone.

However, aware that she will be in the firing line if Greece rejects a deal and ends up leaving the euro, Merkel has been careful to avoid discussing the risk of a "Grexit", leaving that to her ministers and lawmakers.

It was noticeable that at a joint news conference on Monday with Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, leader of she Social Democratic junior coalition partners, she left it to him to say that a "No" vote meant voting to leave the euro, and did not say that herself.

Each of the leaders' key messages is open to debate. There is no legal way to force Greece to leave the euro if Greeks vote "no". The deal that Merkel called "exceptionally generous" is the same one on offer last week, including measures that will reduce pensioners' net income.

Since that deal will be off the table from midnight, barring a last-minute move to stop the clock, the future is uncertain whether Greeks vote "yes" or "no".

And while market reaction suggests there has been little contagion to other vulnerable euro zone countries so far, many experts say the political and economic damage from a country leaving the euro area may only become visible in the longer term.

(Additional reporting by Silvia Aloisi in Milan, Julien Ponthus in Paris, Noah Barkin in Berlin and Alastair Macdonald in Brussels; Writing by Paul Taylor; Editing by Peter Graff)