Juncker refuses to take phone call from Tsipras
What a kindergarten and now cat fight.
Jean-Claude 1 Dumb Junker
Greek PM to hold talks with Merkel & Hollande on Wednesday
- According to a Greek government official, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will hold talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande on Wednesday
Reuters reporting
And on and on we go.
EU's Juncker snubs Greek PM after "absurd" debt deal rebuff
The European Union's chief executive declined to speak to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Saturday after the leftist leader rejected as "absurd" international creditors' terms for a cash-for-reform deal to keep his country from default.
An EU official said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who has tried to bridge the gap between Athens and its lenders, refused to take a telephone call from the Greek premier since there was nothing new to discuss.
A Greek government official denied the report and said Tsipras held a conference call on the debt crisis with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande.
The unresolved debt impasse, which is weighing on financial markets and could hit the global economic recovery, will hang over a Group of Seven leaders' summit that Merkel will chair in southern Germany from Sunday. A German spokesman said Tsipras was not invited.
With time running out for a debt deal and Greece struggling to meet its payment obligations, relations between Athens and its European and IMF lenders have turned increasingly raw.
A European Commission spokeswoman said in a text message: "I can confirm that there was a request for a call. President Juncker and PM Tsipras will certainly stay in contact in the coming days, as was said in the statement on Wednesday night."
Tsipras had been due to return to Brussels for more talks on Friday but, faced with a backlash inside his Syriza party, went to the Greek parliament instead and denounced the creditors' conditions as a "very bad negotiating trick".
"The Greek prime minister requested a phone call for 1100 CET on Saturday, but Juncker declined because there has been no progress in the discussions, and proposals that the Greek side promised on Wednesday night to deliver on Thursday have not arrived," the EU official told Reuters.
"There have been no new developments so there was nothing to discuss," the official said.
European Parliament President Martin Schulz, who has been supportive of Greece's cause, also voiced exasperation, telling the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper: "The stubbornness of the Greek government is infuriating."
German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, a Social Democrat more sympathetic to Athens than his conservative coalition partners, warned in a newspaper interview that the mood in Germany was now for letting Greece leave the euro zone.
Asked if he saw a deal soon, Gabriel said: "That depends solely on the Greek government. Europe has gone to its limits."
Greece postponed a payment to the International Monetary Fund due on Friday until the end of June, highlighting its precarious cash position and spooking markets. The move gave it a few extra days to negotiate a deal it wants linked to future debt relief.
An EU diplomat said Tsipras would fly to Brussels on Tuesday before a two-day EU-Latin America summit, and that would be an opportunity for political talks on a solution, while experts from Greece and the EU/IMF lenders work on detail in parallel technical negotiation
Juncker promises Greek deadline ... at some point
Juncker on Greece
Yesterday, Juncker refused a phone call from Tsipras. Evidently he's upset that Greece missed a Thursday deadline to respond to an EU proposal.
By now, he should know that 'deadline' has a different meaning in Greece but, evidently, it also does in EU circles. Today he was asked when is the final deadline for a Greek deal, and said, "For sure there will be a deadline" without saying when.
He said that he still considers Tsipras a friend but "in order to remain friends one has to respect some minimum rules".
Adding to the comedy, he said that he 'ruled out' a Greek exit from the euro and in the same sentence said that doesn't mean he can pull a rabbit out of his hat to prevent it.
He also urged Greece to send alternative proposals quickly so they can be discussed this week in Brussels.
There's a bit of good news on Greece
The phone imbroglio might have sent markets in a bit of a tizzy on Monday but there is a report on RTRS, citing a Greek govt official, who says Greece wants to continue to negotiate at the political level.
We Need 'Speech of Hope': Greece to Merkel
Writing on his popular blog on Sunday, Greece Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis reminded readers of a famous address called the "Speech of Hope" delivered by US Secretary of State James F. Byrnes in 1946 in Stuttgart, giving the defeated and fallen country the prospect of post-war recovery, new life and economic growth.
"Seven decades later, it is my country, Greece, that needs such a chance...Today, it is my country that is locked in such circumstances and in need of hope," Varoufakis wrote.
"Moralistic objections to helping Greece abound, denying its people a shot at achieving their own renaissance. Greater austerity is being demanded from an economy that is on its knees, owing to the heftiest dose of austerity any country has ever had to endure in peacetime. No offer of debt relief. No plan for boosting investment. And certainly, as of yet, no 'Speech of Hope' for this fallen people," the minister said passionately.
"Teenagers should never be told that, due to some 'prodigal sin,' they deserve to be educated in cash-strapped schools and weighed down by mass unemployment, whether the scene is Germany in the late 1940s or Greece today," he argued.
"The Greek government is presenting the European Union with a set of proposals for deep reforms, debt management, and an investment plan to kick-start the economy. Greece is indeed ready and willing to enter into a compact with Europe that will eliminate the deformities that caused it to be the first domino to fall in 2010," Varoufakis said.
Merkel should deliver the speech in Athens or Thessaloniki "or any other Greek city of her choice," Varoufakis suggested, to help to restore morale to the Greek people.
Her speech could "mark a sea change, a break with the past five years of adding new loans on top of already unsustainable debt, conditional on further doses of punitive austerity."
Varoufakis is traveling to Berlin on Monday to meet his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble.
Greek government repeats they can not accept creditors' proposal
but Juncker is a "friend of Greece"Maybe he should pick up the phone when called then
- delegation is "empowered" to make counter proposals
- " let's not put deadlines in place in order to get a good deal"
It just gets funnier/sadder by the day
EU's Juncker says talks with Greece will re-start, on a technical level first
Politics afterwards he saysRtrs reporting. No further deets
This is becoming boring and sad
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If you were waiting for a sign that things have gone badly, this is it
Reuters reports, citing an EU official, that European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker refused to take a phone call from Greek PM Tsipras on Saturday because Athens has not yet delivered proposals promised for last Thursday.
This is going to turn into a street fight.