Euro fears rise on greek standoff
Eurozone risking ‘house of cards’ collapse: minister
•Greece and its eurozone partners engaged in brinkmanship on Monday, with leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras insisting his country would not extend its reform-linked bailout and Germany saying it would get no more money without such a program.
European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker warned Greeks not to expect the eurozone to bow to Mr. Tsipras’ demands in a growing confrontation that spooked financial markets and prompted U.S. and Canadian pleas for calm and compromise.
Escalating the rhetoric, Greece’s finance minister said the eurozone could collapse “like a house of cards” if Athens were forced out. A Greek finance official said he did not believe Mr. Juncker, German Chancellor Angela Merkel or IMF chief Christine Lagarde would let Greece go bankrupt.
Mr. Tsipras set out plans on Sunday to scrap Greece’s “cruel” austerity program, ruled out any extension of its €240 billion (US$272 billion) EU/IMF bailout, which runs out at the end of this month, and vowed to seek reparations from Germany for the Second World War.
His uncompromising maiden policy speech to parliament triggered a further slide in Greek bank stocks to near record lows and a sharp spike in government bond yields, sending wider jitters around Europe’s financial markets.
However, The New York Times reported late Monday that Greek officials were preparing a proposal aimed at defusing the standoff, that would include the possibility of using part of a bailout loan disbursement of €7 billion that the government had originally said it would reject, according to a finance official speaking to the Times on condition of anonymity. The official reportedly said that Greece would replace about 30% of the strictest conditions with new reforms worked out between Greece and the OECD, but would propose conceding to the remaining 70% and also extend the period for Greece to reach a “new contract” with its creditors to August, rather than May.
Visiting Austria on Monday, Mr. Tsipras said he was confident of striking a compromise with European partners in the coming days and renewed his appeal for a “bridge” arrangement until June to allow time to negotiate a restructuring of Greece’s debt.
A senior finance ministry official in Athens told reporters that restructuring the debt and lowering the targeted primary budget surplus, before debt service payments, were among Greece’s non-negotiable “red lines” for any EU negotiation.
Germany, the eurozone’s main paymaster, has insisted that the radical new Greek government must respect commitments made by its conservative-led predecessor.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said if Athens wanted a bridging deal, it would need an internationally supervised reform program.
“Without a program, things will be tough for Greece. I wouldn’t know how financial markets will handle it without a program — but maybe he knows better,” MR. Schaueble told reporters at a G20 finance ministers’ meeting in Istanbul.
In a sign of mounting international concern, British Prime Minister David Cameron held a special meeting with finance ministry and Bank of England officials to plan for a possible Greek exit from the eurozone, a Treasury source said.
Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who found scant support on a tour of European capitals last week for his ideas for a debt exchange, angered eurozone partners by telling Italian television on Sunday the 19-nation single currency area would ultimately collapse if Greece were forced out.
MR. Juncker told reporters on a visit to Germany: “Greece should not assume that the overall mood has so changed that the eurozone will adopt Tsipras’s government program unconditionally.”
The EU executive chief, who met the Greek leader in Brussels last week, said he did not expect a deal on the way forward with Greece at an EU summit on Thursday or a prior meeting of eurozone finance ministers on Wednesday.
“I don’t think we’ll reach final conclusions so soon,” Mr. Juncker said at a meeting of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Nauen, near Berlin.
German Vice-Chancellor and SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel, attending the same event, rebuffed Mr. Tsipras’ call for reparations over the Nazi occupation of Greece, saying such matters had been finally dealt with in major power negotiations that led to German unification in 1990.
Asked whether Berlin would pay compensation, Mr. Gabriel said: “The probability is zero.”
Greek financial markets sank further on Monday after credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s cut Athens’ rating last Friday.
Government bond yields rose by up to 3.7 percentage points, with three-year yields nearing 22%. The soaring rates mean Greece is shut out of capital markets.
Despite calls for compromise from European leaders, Mr. Tsipras rattled off a list to parliament of moves to reverse reforms imposed by EU and International Monetary Fund lenders, telling deputies he would reinstate pension bonuses, cancel a property tax, end mass layoffs and raise the minimum wage.
Mr. Juncker said Mr. Tsipras had taken “only limited account” of EU suggestions on the way forward in the debt crisis. Brussels has been pressing Athens to request an extension of the bailout program for a few months to allow time for negotiations on easing the debt burden in exchange for economic reforms.
A senior eurozone official said the two sides were not much closer to a solution. There appeared to be “a very dogmatic attitude in Athens,” fuelled by Mr. Varoufakis’ incendiary interview and by the role of investment bank- ers Lazard, which is advising Greece on the debt issue, the source said.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told U.S. broadcaster CNBC: “Everybody’s got to tamp down the rhetoric a little bit.
“There needs to be a conversation where Greece and all of the parties that it’s engaged with, look for a practical, pragmatic path forward,” he said.
Washington has raised public pressure on the eurozone to compromise with Greece, irritating Germany. U.S. President Barack Obama was expected to raise the issue with Ms. Merkel in talks at the White house later on Monday.
Canadian Finance Minister Joe Oliver also called for a deal over Greece’s debt, telling Reuters that while Athens must not default, its creditors also needed to work with it “to arrive at a compromise solution.”