He added that lending institutions have made exceptionally generous concessions to the Greek government, and its now up to the Greek side to show some movement.Meanwhile, the Greek PM insists that the countrys reform plan is equivalent to the counterproposals by the creditors, but much less recessionary.
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Austria’s finance minister, Hans Jörg Schelling, said the Eurogroup will look at new proposals on Greece, hoping to reach a compromise before 4 p.m. Brussels time, or 10 a.m. Eastern, according to media reports.
It had sought an extension to be able to have a referendum on July 5 on whether to accept the creditors’ bailout proposals, and recommended Greeks to vote against them.
Negotiations will now run into the weekend.
Dijsselbloem explained that the issues involved are technical, and so they had to be viewed by experts before the ministers could assess them.
Greece is in urgent need to negotiate a further bailout from its worldwide creditors before the end of the month in order to fulfill its debt repayment to the International Monetary Fund, which falls due on June 30.
As eurozone finance ministers gather for a meeting on Greece, Finland’s Alexander Stubb has low expectations that a bailout deal can be reached Wednesday.
“The more calmly we deal with difficulties, the sooner we can overcome them and the milder their consequences will be”, a somber-looking Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in a televised address. “But the agreement must be balanced”.
“For the last few weeks the three [creditor] institutions have been working together”, said International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde.
The eurogroup of finance ministers tried again Thursday, but the talks broke up with only a promise that Greece and its creditors would continue to try to close the gap between their positions over the next two days.
Austrian Finance Minister Joerg Schelling mentioned considering “alternatives” if there was no deal on Thursday, though he didn’t mention the specifics.
Jens Weidmann, who sits on the governing council of the European Central Bank, says the long-term provision of emergency credit to Greek banks “has become the banks’ only source of funding”.
“We will hear from the Greek minister about whether all this is correct and then we will talk about the consequences that will have”, he added.
“Pierre Moscovici said on Saturday ahead of the meeting that the differences between Greece and its creditors could be bridged”.
The European Central Bank approved the request Thursday, as it has done every day since Friday as Greece headed into the final stretch of tough bailout negotiations with no clear solution in sight.
Apparently, failing an agreement in the Eurogroup the talks will spill-over to the two-day European Union leaders’ summit which has migration as the top agenda.
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In Frankfurt, powerful German Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann voiced concern in a speech about the continued provision of emergency liquidity assistance to keep Greek banks afloat in the face of massive deposit withdrawals.
