Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis will not bring a list of new reform measures to a meeting of EU finance ministers later this week, he said yesterday in a newspaper interview.
“The Eurogroup is not the right place to present proposals which have not been discussed and negotiated on a lower level before,” Varoufakis told Germany’s Bild.
However, he said the Greek negotiation team is “available at any time” to find a comprehensive solution with its partners, “on [the] condition that their representatives come to the table with a firm and clear mandate.”
With signs that negotiating fatigue was stoking intransigence on all sides, some eurozone officials publicly raised the prospect of Greece’s exit from the currency region as the Greek government suggested that it had reached the limits of its ability to make concessions.
Greece is resisting demands for further cuts in pension spending as well as tax increases.
Asian markets retreated yesterday for a second straight session, tracking a worldwide sell-off as Greece struggles to find a compromise with its creditors.
Tokyo lost 0.64 percent, or 129.85 points, to close at 20,257.94 and Sydney ended marginally lower, dipping 2.97 points to 5,535.8. Seoul fell 0.67 percent, or 13.60 points, to close at 2,028.72.
Greece’s 240 billion euro (271.3 billion) bailout expires on June 30, and to meet that deadline, a reform deal must be resolved by tomorrow, when the eurozone’s 19 finance ministers, who control the purse strings of the rescue program, are to meet in Luxembourg.
Varoufakis said talks in Brussels collapsed on Sunday because “the representatives of the creditors told us that they did not have a mandate to hold in-depth negotiations over our proposals and measures to resolve the debt crisis... That is the reason why there was no outcome.”
Greece and its creditors are locked in a stalemate after the loan talks collapsed, bringing Athens just two weeks away from a catastrophic default on its debt.
While the European executive insisted the EU-IMF creditors had made “major concessions,” Athens continues to reject what it views as “irrational” austerity demands.
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