Greece ready to compromise on debt
The prime minister is being less defiant. DEEPA BABINGTON and DAVIDSTAMPreport.
Greece has proclaimed a new willingness to compromise with its international creditors, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that time was running out for a reform-for-aid deal to keep the country in the euro.
Three days after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told his parliament the latest proposal from the EU and IMF was ‘‘absurd’’, the Greek government said it was ready to negotiate a settlement acceptable to both sides by the end of this month – when Greece’s bailout programme expires and it faces the prospect of default on its debts.
For all the more positive mood music, a European Union official reported ‘‘no new developments’’ in the hunt for a deal under which the creditors would resume aid in return for promises of more austerity.
Athens and Brussels exchanged proposals last week in the hope of breaking an impasse that, if unresolved, could force Greece out of the euro zone, an event that could shake financial markets and even the global economy.
Merkel, who is due to meet Tsipras along with French President Francois Hollande on Wednesday, stressed she wanted Greece to remain part of the currency bloc.
But, speaking after a summit of the Group of Seven industrialised nations in Germany, she said there was ‘‘not much time left’’.
US President Barack Obama said after the meeting in the Bavarian Alps that the Greeks need to make ‘‘some tough political choices’’, and both sides must show flexibility.
Hollande underlined that to reach the end of June deadline, a deal had to be nailed down soon. Tsipras has called for broad political negotiations, but Hollande made clear the EU was more interested in the details of what he will promise.
‘‘We must quickly have, in the coming hours or days, technical talks to narrow positions and to replace the proposals Greece cannot accept with alternative measures,’’ he said after the G7 meeting.
As he spoke, European Economics Commissioner Pierre Moscovici held talks in Brussels with Greece’s chief negotiator Euclid Tsakalotos and minister of state Nikos Pappas.
The Wall Street Journal cited unnamed sources as saying the creditors last week proposed extending the bailout programme until March 2016 in return for steps including pension cuts and tax increases. One senior eurozone official said he was unaware of any such proposal. Greek officials were unavailable for comment. Tsipras’s uncompromising remarks on Saturday risk costing him what friends he had left in Brussels.
With European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker expressing open exasperation, Greek government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis signalled a flexibility absent from Tsipras’s speech. ‘‘Definitely our proposal is the starting point,’’ he said.
‘‘The target of the Greek delegation is to explore the possibility of an agreement that will satisfy both sides.’’
He left open the possibility of another extension to the programme.
Even Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who fell out badly with his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble earlier in the negotiations, joined in the spirit.
He described talks with Schaeuble in Berlin on Monday as ‘‘very helpful.’’
Polls suggest the Greek public are willing to compromise in a deal with creditors to resume funding. However, the EU and IMF are urging yet more reform and austerity on a population that has already suffered a plunge in living standards and soaring unemployment.