Tsipras, for his part, was insisting on a stronger commitment by the creditors to restructure Greek debt to make it sustainable in the medium-term.
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Greece will have another, possibly its last, chance Sunday to convince skeptical European creditors it can be trusted to enact wide-ranging economic reforms that would safeguard its future in the euro.
Greece risks being ejected from the single currency zone if an agreement on economic reforms is not reached by the 18 other member nations.
“That raises the issue clearly of reshaping the government, of the government’s majority, which leads to elections very soon”, it said in an editorial on Sunday.
“We are going to give those to the leaders, so it is up to them”, Dijsselbloem said, without giving further details.
Right now, Greece is working through a proposal from its European creditors that demand a number of changes by Wednesday just to restart negotiations on a new bailout.
The ECB is providing emergency liquidity to keep Greek banks afloat but has frozen the limit, with fears that failure to reach a deal could cause it to shut off the taps completely. It has frozen its help over the past couple of weeks as the lenders have stayed closed. Almost all Greek citizens have withdrawn at least some of their money from banks in recent weeks.
Greece fell into arrears on an International Monetary Fund repayment on 20 June and faces a €3bn payment to the European Central Bank on 20 July. Even if the banks reopen, it’s possible that they could run out of cash even for cash-machine withdrawals this week.
In Helsinki, reports emerged that Finland’s Parliament has decided it will not allow the government to accept any new bailout deal for Greece.
It highlighted the increasing frustration with Greece during five months of fruitless talks.
Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipila denied his government had been on the verge of collapse over disagreements on a Greek bailout among coalition members.
“The most important currency has been lost and that is trust”, she told reporters.
Greece’s negotiators head to Brussels on Saturday armed with their reform proposals and parliamentary backing to seek a third bailout, but with the shadow of severe dissent from governing lawmakers hanging over them.
“There will be no agreement at any price”, Merkel said as she arrived for a summit of 19 eurozone leaders, complaining of a loss of trust in Athens and warning of “tough negotiations” ahead.
The finance ministers’ meeting will be followed Sunday by a summit of European leaders to determine whether Greece should get new financing. “Nerves are tense”.
However, French president Francois Hollande, highlighting the differences within the creditors’ camp, insisted it was vital to keep Greece in the currency club and avoid a so-called Grexit.
Negotiators also talked about “swift negotiations on a time-out from the euro area, with possible debt restructuring”, as well as a transfer of about $55 billion in Greek assets. “But in that case it’s Europe that retreats and no longer progresses and I don’t want that”, he said.
“I think we have a very good proposal on the table; it has far-reaching conditionality”, Stubb said.
“The euro zone meeting has broken up and we don’t know much more other than it looks a lot worse than it did on Friday“, said Tim Kelleher, head of institutional FX sales at ASB bank in Auckland.
The eurozone ministers have to give their blessing to Greece’s bailout request to the European Stability Mechanism. Traditionally, eurozone ministers agree by mutual consensus. Though the country’s annual budget deficit has come down dramatically, Greece’s debt burden has increased as the economy has shrunk by a quarter.
The Greek government source, who asked not to be named, said a major concern for Athens was International Monetary Fund involvement in what would be a third debt rescue.
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Greek debt stands at around 320bn euros ($357bn) – or 180 per cent of the country’s annual GDP.
