EUROZONE-GREECE/NEGOTIATORS Greek PM meets negotiating team before talks in Brussels

Record ID: 151016

  • Title: EUROZONE-GREECE/NEGOTIATORS Greek PM meets negotiating team before talks in Brussels
  • Date: 12th June 2015
  • Summary: ATHENS, GREECE (JUNE 12, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF EXTERIOR OF GREEK PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE GREEK AND EU FLAGS FLYING DEPUTY LABOUR MINISTER, DIMITRIS STRATOULIS, GETTING OUT OF CAR, WALKING UP STEPS AND ENTERING PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE FINANCE MINISTER, YANIS VAROUFAKIS, EXITING PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE AND LEAVING ALTERNATE ECONOMIC AFFAIRS MINISTER AND MEMBER OF GREECE
  • Embargoed: 27th June 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Greece
  • Country: Greece
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA4HOQ4OSSOS7LDOZB1JS0QAXY4
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met on Friday (June 12) with senior cabinet ministers and Greece's negotiating team after senior European Union officials formally discussed for the first time a possible Greek debt default.
    After meeting with Tsipras, the negotiating team was set to fly to Brussels on Saturday (June 13) with counter-proposals to bridge differences with Greece's creditors and restart cash-for-reforms talks.
    Time to reach an agreement between Athens and its EU and International Monetary Fund creditors is running out, but a deal is possible if Greek officials make credible counter-proposals, European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said on Friday.
    The comments by Dombrovskis came after the IMF withdrew its team of experts from talks in Brussels on Thursday (June 11) over a failure to break a stalemate in the strenuous negotiations that have dragged for more than four months.
    No one knows, least of all in Athens or Brussels, whether the anti-austerity government can reach a deal with its international lenders before an end of June deadline to avoid putting the country in grave danger of crashing out of the eurozone.
    But senior European Union officials are taking no chances, and have discussed a series of scenarios, several officials told Reuters.
    These included a potential Greek default on a 1.6 billion euro payment to the IMF, the global lender of last resort, at the end of this month, they said.
    Government representatives, preparing next week's Eurogroup meeting of eurozone finance ministers, concluded in the Slovak capital that there were three scenarios, and that the best of them, reaching a deal next week, was now the least likely.
    The second scenario was a further extension of Greece's current bailout programme, which expires this month.
    The third - discussed formally for the first time at such a senior level in the EU - was to accept that Greece could default.
    Most officials argued it was unlikely that creditors, which include the European Central Bank, would strike a deal on reforms with Athens in time to disburse 7.2 billion euros still available under a rescue programme extended in February for four months.
    The Greek representative at the meeting said Athens would do everything to reach a deal in time, other officials said.
    That would in effect mean an agreement in time to be endorsed by the Eurogroup when it meets in Luxembourg late on June 18.
    Tsipras's government was elected in February on a platform to reject the austerity policies it says have worsened one of the deepest economic depressions in modern times.
    It says it wants a deal with creditors that would keep Greece in the eurozone, but not at a cost of violating "red lines" such as deeper cuts to pensions and workers' rights.
    Renewed uncertainty put European markets on the back foot and sent Greece's top share index down more than five percent on Friday.
    Economists believe a solution remains possible but acknowledge that the creditors may soon tell Athens to accept their demands or face "Grexit" - market shorthand for Greece becoming the first country to exit the eurozone.
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