Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras plans to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande again to discuss a financial lifeline as his minister of finance joined him in rejecting a new creditor offer.
Tsipras spoke with his counterparts on Saturday night and they agreed to converge in Brussels on Wednesday on the sidelines of a summit, said a Greek government official who asked not to be named in line with policy.
The call took place hours after Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis said the most recent offer would exacerbate Greece’s economic plight and urged creditors to consider debt relief instead.
Photo: Reuters
“As finance minister, I will refuse to put my signature on a deal” such as the one that is being proposed, Varoufakis told Proto Thema newspaper.
“We will not sign a deal that extends this self-feeding crisis of the last five years,” he added.
His comments came a day after Tsipras decried the “clearly unrealistic” demands being made, even as he said that the two sides were closer to a deal.
A Greek plan, submitted at about the same time, is still on the table and awaiting feedback, a Greek government official said by e-mail on Saturday, asking not to be identified in line with policy.
As the two sides dig in and extend a four-month standoff, Greece is hurtling toward a default. The government needs to seal an agreement or get another extension before the eurozone’s bailout of the Mediterranean nation expires on June 30 to be able to meet payment on its about 313 billion euros (US$347.8 billion) of debt.
Varoufakis said that what is needed is “a debt restructuring that will make Greek debt sustainable, without a cost for the creditors.”
He said cutting pensions was “not a reform” and what is instead needed is an investment plan.
Frustration is growing.
After listening to Tsipras address legislators on Friday night, Slovak Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Peter Kazimir said he wondered “whether this is the same Tsipras who was in Brussels and Berlin this week.”
Kazimir, who commented on his social media account, said “debt restructuring is not on the table.”
Tsipras asked for a call with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Saturday, according to a commission spokeswoman who asked not to be named in line with policy.
Juncker and Tsipras are to stay in contact in coming days, she said, declining to comment on whether a call had been turned down.
In a sign of how little maneuvering room there is, Greece on Thursday notified the IMF that a 300 million euro payment due on Friday last week would be deferred and bundled with three more payments at the end of the month.
The move was a 180-degree turn by the Greek government and caught many by surprise. While bundling the transfers is permitted under IMF rules, the deviation from standard practice adds to signs that Greece might be preparing for a potential breakdown of talks after a prolonged impasse.
“Tsipras has his back against the wall,” said Miranda Xafa, a former Greek representative to the IMF who runs a consultancy in Athens. “If a deal is not reached next week, in time for parliamentary approval of the deal, we are staring at disorderly default, deposit withdrawals, capital controls, and social unrest. I think a deal is in the making.”
Tsipras on Friday said voters are urging the government not to “succumb to the irrational, blackmailing demands of our creditors.”
Even with those comments, he said Greece is “closer to a deal than ever before.”
“I am sure that in the coming days our realistic and consistent position will be vindicated,” he said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy