No amount was mentioned.
Advertisement
Tsipras has yet to detail what the tax reforms will entail or how they will be implemented but has until Thursday night to reach a deal with creditors. Its aim, it went on, was to regain “full and affordable market financing to meet its future funding requirements as well as sustainable economic and financial situation” by the time the loan ends at the latest.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said he was drawing up contingency plans for a Greek exit, and for humanitarian aid for Greece.
Without a deal, the country faces an nearly inevitable collapse of the banking system, and European leaders have warned Greece this is its last chance to remain in the euro.
Markets are holding up despite the apparent ultimatum, with many investors predicting a last-minute deal.
With negotiators arriving in Brussels for an emergency summit on the Greek financial crisis, a German newspaper reported Tuesday that Greece’s renewed proposal to its credtors would contain similar terms to the referendum rejected by a 20-point margin by the country’s voters. We have a scenario as far as humanitarian aid is concerned. Reuters reports that the European Central Bank will keep Greek banks afloat until Sunday.
President Obama and Merkel spoke by phone earlier in the day, and agreed it was “in everyone’s interest to reach a durable agreement that will allow Greece to resume reforms, return to growth, and achieve debt sustainability within the eurozone”, according to the White House. He also indicated the European Central Bank would effectively pull the plug on its emergency liquidity measures for Greek banks if no deal is struck.
Michel Reijns, the spokesman for the eurozone’s top official Jeroen Dijsselbloem, says Greece submitted the request for a new support program from the European Stability Mechanism Wednesday morning. A few called for compromise.
Tsipras failed to present eurozone leaders with a viable…
In Greece, meanwhile, people were struggling with an eighth day of limits on money withdrawals and closed banks.
Leftist leader Tsipras was greeted by a mix of boos and cheers as he addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Wednesday. We must find the final solution to the debt crisis which feeds on itself. The danger in that has always been that other debtor nations such as Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland – who received 2011 bailouts – might follow, which could bring down the entire confederation.
Tsipras vowed to continue reforms already undertaken.
“This has exhausted the patience and resilience of the Greek people”, he said.
Donald Tusk, who chairs meetings of European leaders, has harked back to one of Greece’s famous sons to urge a resolution of the country’s crisis: The historian Plutarch.
“We are determined not to have a clash with Europe but to tackle head on the establishment in our own country and to change the mindset which will take us and the euro zone down”, he said to applause from the left. It also hinted that it would like some form of debt relief from earlier bailouts.
Germany appears to be particularly reluctant to help Greece deal with its debts if reforms aren’t forthcoming. Creditors will consider these at another eurogroup meeting on Wednesday.
Advertisement
‘However, nowhere have those programmes been so harsh and so long lasting as in Greece and it is no exaggeration to say that my country has over the past five years been transformed into an austerity laboratory.
