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Out of Options and Time, Tsipras Faces Greece’s Moment of Truth

Greek Premier Alexis Tsipras and Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis take a walk in central Athens on June 13, 2015. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has four days to capitulate to demands to keep Greece in the euro — or prepare for a messy divorce. The collapse of talks in Brussels on Sunday has made Thursday’s meeting of euro-area finance ministers the next deadline in the saga that opened in 2009. Bills are piling up and the aid spigot, shut for 10 months, is about to be withdrawn. “This week is deal week,” Mujtaba Rahman, head of euro zone analysis at Eurasia Group in London. So what happens if the gathering in Luxembourg is a bust? Once the prospect of a successful negotiation fades so do the odds of Greece paying the $1.7 billion it owes the International Monetary Fund this month. A default makes it difficult for the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Wall Street falls as Greece crisis unresolved; energy shares dip

U.S. stocks fell on Friday as Greek debt talks hit a stalemate and as concern over how soon the Federal Reserve might raise interest rates kept investors cautious. Energy shares dropped as oil prices fell for a second straight day. The energy index .SPNY, down 1.2 percent, led the day’s decline, followed by a 1.1 percent drop in the healthcare index .SPXHC. Upbeat consumer sentiment and other data added to views the economy may be regaining momentum, which increased anxiety for investors ahead of next week’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting, the U.S. central bank’s last meeting before September. Also of concern, a day after the International Monetary Fund quit bailout talks with Greece, EU officials said they had held their first formal discussions on the worst-case scenario for the country. "It’s the Greek situation again, and that’s been played out on a day-to-day basis, where you had a […]

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Despite IMF walkout, Greece hopes for deal on June 18

ATHENS Greece hopes to clinch a deal with its lenders at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers on June 18, the state minister said on Friday, as time runs short for the country to stave off default at the end of the month. The statement by Alekos Flabouraris came a day after the International Monetary Fund walked away from negotiations in Brussels, citing major differences, and a top EU leader bluntly told Athens to stop "gambling" with its future. A Greek source told Reuters that the entire Greek delegation that had been negotiating a cash-for-reform deal had also left for home on Thursday, citing continuing disagreements. "I hope it (a deal) will come very soon, on June 18, when the Eurogroup takes place," Flabouraris, a close aid to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, told state television ERT. Greece needs a deal to unlock aid before the end of the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Greek PM Tsipras says accord possible if pensions are not cut

ROME Greece could reach a deal with its international creditors if they dropped demands including cuts to pensions, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera published on Tuesday. Reflecting the more conciliatory tone Athens has adopted in recent days, he said the two sides could find a compromise on key elements in any deal, including the size of a primary budget surplus. But he showed no signs of accepting creditor demands for cuts to pensions or other social spending, repeating comments he has made over recent days. "I think we’re very close to an agreement on the primary surplus for the next few years," he told the newspaper. "There just needs to be a positive attitude on alternative proposals to cuts to pensions or the imposition of recessionary measures." The comments came as Greece’s international partners, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and […]

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EU Parliament president warns Athens of dramatic consequences if talks fail

BERLIN European Parliament President Martin Schulz urged Greece in a newspaper interview to accept a proposal by its international lenders for a cash-for-reforms deal, warning Athens that failing to reach an agreement would have "dramatic" consequences. The European Union is willing to compromise with the Greek government, Schulz told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag in an interview published on Sunday, adding that the lenders had already made concessions in the debt negotiations. "I can only warn the Greek government against turning down the hand held out to them," Schulz, who has been supportive of Greece’s cause, said. "Time is running out and the consequences would be dramatic." Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has spurned the terms of proposed aid from lenders, creating an impasse that threatens to push Greece into default and out of the euro zone. Schulz said Tsipras and his Syriza party should come to terms with […]

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EU chief rebukes Greece, demands swift debt plan

KRUEN, Germany The European Union’s exasperation with Greece burst into the open on Sunday when its chief executive rebuked leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and warned that time was running out to conclude a debt deal to avert a damaging Greek default. In unusually sharp terms, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker accused Tsipras of distorting proposals by international creditors for a cash-for-reform agreement and of dragging his feet in offering an alternative. He urged Athens to put its own ideas on the table swiftly to enable talks to resume on the sidelines of an EU-Latin America summit on Wednesday in Brussels. U.S. President Barack Obama discussed the Greek crisis with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in private talks before a Group of Seven industrial nations’ summit in Germany and expressed hope that Greece and its partners would chart a course without causing volatility in financial markets, the White House said. […]

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Greece and Ukraine crises drown out G7 summit agenda

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany Leaders from the Group of Seven (G7) industrial nations meet on Sunday in the Bavarian Alps for a summit overshadowed by Greece’s debt crisis and ongoing violence in Ukraine. Host Angela Merkel is hoping to secure commitments from her G7 guests to tackle global warming to build momentum in the run-up to a major United Nations climate summit in Paris in December. The German agenda also foresees discussions on global health issues, from Ebola to antibiotics and tropical diseases. But on the evening before the German chancellor welcomes the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan and the United States, she and French President Francois Hollande were forced into their fourth emergency phone call in 10 days with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to try to break a deadlock between Athens and its international creditors. The two sides have been wrangling for months over the terms of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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If You Think Greece’s Crisis Will End Soon, Think Again

Frustrated by Greece’s cat and mouse game with its creditors? Get used to it. Even if Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras clinches as much as 7.2 billion euros ($8 billion) from a bailout tranche creditors are withholding, he’s going to need another cash infusion shortly thereafter. What will ensue is a renewed battle after almost five months of trench warfare. The beleaguered country requires a third bailout of about 30 billion euros, according to Nomura International Plc analysts Lefteris Farmakis and Dimitris Drakopoulos. The final bill will depend on whether fellow euro member states grant Greece any debt relief, and what form that relief would take, they said. Tsipras says any aid must be on his terms rather than those of governments whose taxpayers have forked out billions in the past five years to keep Greece in the euro. The standoff has triggered an unprecedented liquidity squeeze, pushing the country’s […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple