Greece cannot accept a cash-for-reform deal under the terms that European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was reported to have proposed on Wednesday to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Greek Deputy Minister of Shipping Thodoris Dritsas said.
Dritsas said Athens would not “surrender” to demands by its international creditors in the negotiations.
“What appears to have been discussed and to have been proposed by Mr Juncker during his meeting with the Greek prime minister is beneath [our] expectations in every way,” he told told Greek TV. “If reports are confirmed, obviously we cannot accept them.”
Photo: Reuters
Tsipras emerged from late-night talks with senior EU officials in Brussels saying a deal with creditors was “within sight” after months of talks.
“The talks will continue in the coming days,” said Tsipras — whose radical SYRIZA party was elected in January on the back of promises to end five years of painful austerity measures that plunged Greece into recession.
The Greek prime minister said that there were “points that no one would consider as a base for discussion” during the talks and that Greece’s reform plan “remains the only realistic plan on the table.”
International creditors had presented a rival plan that they hammered out without Greece at a meeting in Berlin on Monday attended by the leaders of Germany and France.
However, he added that after months of often bad-tempered talks between Athens and its creditors, “there was proof from the commission that it is at least disposed towards reaching a realistic agreement very quickly.”
Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who also attended the four-hour talks over dinner in Brussels, told reporters it was a “very good meeting.”
The European Commission — the executive arm of the 28-member EU and one of Greece’s three bailout monitors, along with the IMF and European Central Bank — said in a statement that there had been “progress” during the talks.
“It was a good, constructive meeting. Progress was made in understanding each other’s positions on the basis of various proposals. It was agreed that they will meet again,” it said.
Senior eurozone officials were due to hold a teleconference later yesterday, officials said.
Many EU leaders are also scheduled to be in Brussels for a Latin American summit on Wednesday and Thursday next week.
On their way into the working dinner, Juncker and Tsipras shook hands for the cameras, but there was none of the horsing around at earlier meetings when Juncker mocked the radical Greek leader’s refusal to wear a tie. Greece’s eurozone partners and its creditors had wanted a deal by today, when Athens must repay the IMF 300 million euros (US$340.1 million).
Fears of a messy Greek exit from the euro are growing, with its current 240 billion euro bailout program due to run out at the end of this month, and a total of 1.6 billion euros in payments due to the IMF in total this month, which Athens does not have.
In the hours before the Tsipras-Juncker meeting, there were frantic efforts to bridge the gap between the demands of the creditors and the hard-left SYRIZA government’s determination to end austerity measures.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande acknowledged “the necessity” to lower primary surplus targets — a key sticking point with Athens — during phone talks on Wednesday with Tsipras, Greek sources said.
Athens has insisted on lower targets that would allow it to honour promises to voters to increase public spending, having already made compromises on pension reform and sales tax.
Any deal that does eventually emerge faces a major hurdle as the reforms would have to be approved by the Greek parliament.
This could be tough given that Tsipras is under intense pressure from SYRIZA’s influential radical wing to reject any plan that piles more austerity on the recession-hit country.
Some SYRIZA officials have said they would rather hold snap elections than accept more austerity.
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