Euro-area finance ministers were faced with competing proposals
aimed at resolving......
the standoff with Greece after talks between Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his country’s creditors failed to produce a compromise position.
the standoff with Greece after talks between Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his country’s creditors failed to produce a compromise position.
Greece’s three creditor institutions unanimously agreed on a set of
documents that were sent to finance chiefs to review as the basis for a
deal, even though Greece didn’t accept them, according to European Union
official. Greece submitted its own proposals, a Greek government
official said. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said, rather
than making progress, the Greeks had moved “backwards.”
“If this paper isn’t acceptable to finance ministers then we will
have to think about preparing alternatives,” Austrian Finance Minister
Hans Joerg Schelling told reporters in Brussels on Thursday. “As always
I’m confident that there will be a deal, but it’s becoming more and more
difficult with the passing of each minute.”
Dueling plans on the conditions attached to bailout aid
have dominated the Greek saga since Tsipras was elected in January on a
platform of ending austerity. With the clock ticking to the June 30
expiry of Greece’s euro-area bailout and a 1.5 billion-euro ($1.7
billion) payment to the International Monetary Fund, there’s only a
small chance of a breakthrough in the finance minister meeting,
according to another EU official.
Listening to Greeks
“We will have to hear from the Greek side
what they can agree to, what they can’t agree to,” Jeroen Dijsselbloem,
the Dutch finance minister who chairs meetings of his euro-area
counterparts, said as he arrived for the meeting. “We’ll take it from
there.”
Greek stocks and bonds were trading higher even as successive rounds
of talks failed to bridge the gap between Greece and its creditors. The
Athens Stock Exchange index was up 0.6 percent at 2:15 p.m. in Athens,
having gained 14.3 percent since the beginning of the week. The yield on
the two-year bond was 46 basis points lower at 22 percent.
In the absence of an agreement this afternoon, the focus shifts to EU
leaders who gather in Brussels for a two-day summit later on Thursday.
EU Comission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who said that he left the
talks with Tsipras, IMF chief Christine Lagarde and European Central
Bank head Mario Draghi at 3 a.m. before returning to the commission at 6
a.m., was asked if there will be a deal by June 30.
“I’ll let you know before next Tuesday,” he said.
