There has been “serious progress” in talks over Greece’s debt crisis, but much still needs to be achieved, EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Pierre Moscovici said yesterday.
There is still “work to be done,” Moscovici told French radio after emergency negotiations in Berlin that were joined unexpectedly by the heads of the IMF and the European Central Bank.
The late-night meeting in the German capital was also attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
The aim was to come up with “a final proposal” to present to Athens, according to German daily Die Welt.
IN ‘CLOSE CONTACT’
However, Merkel’s office after the meeting said only that the quintet agreed to work together “intensely” in the coming days and would stay in “close contact.”
“The discussions are starting to bear fruit,” Moscovici said. “There is a solid basis to progress, but we’re not there yet... There are efforts to be made on both sides to get there.”
He said that he “ardently wanted Greece to stay in the eurozone,” but that “time is pressing.”
The nation faces a key deadline on Friday, when it is due to repay 300 million euros (US$328.5 million) to the IMF.
There are fears that Greece does not have the necessary funds and might default, possibly setting off a chain of events that could end with a messy exit from the euro.
Greek Minister of Labor Panos Skourletis yesterday said its government can make no more concessions in negotiations for a cash-for-reforms deal and its international lenders must take responsibility for their role in the talks.
‘POLITICAL’ SOLUTION
“There is no room for more compromises. We are waiting for the other side to assume its responsibilities,” Skourletis told Greece’s Skai TV, adding that it was now time for a “political” solution to the crisis.
Asked whether Athens would accept a “take it or leave it” deal, Nikos Filis, the parliamentary spokesman of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ ruling SYRIZA party, reiterated that the government could not sign an agreement that was incompatible with its anti-austerity program.
“If we’re talking about an ultimatum ... which is not within the framework of the popular mandate, it is obvious that the government cannot co-sign and accept it,” Filis told Antenna TV.
Additional reporting by Reuters
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to