Greece talks once again end without result
Negotiations between Greece and two of the EU’s main financial players, France and Germany, on a bailout for Athens have ended without any results.
The latest round of talks on the Greek debt crisis took place on the sidelines of an EU-Latin America summit on Wednesday and the early hours of Thursday in Brussels, the European Union (EU)’s de facto capital.
On Thursday, shortly after the negotiations, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said his country and France and Germany had only agreed to intensify the talks.
“The European leaders realized that we must offer a viable solution and the chance for Greece to return to growth,” Tsipras told reporters.
The Greek premier’s comments came after hours of negotiations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande.
Germany and France were the main financiers of the EU’s previous loans to Greece.
Athens owes hundreds of millions of dollars in debt to the European Commission (EC), the US-based International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the European Central Bank (ECB).
The failure of the recent trilateral talks increases concerns that Greece may default on its debt.
A spokesman for the EU said after the talks that “it was agreed unanimously that the talks between the Greek government and the institutions (the IMF, the ECB and the EC) should be pursued with great intensity.”
However, no date has been announced for the next round of the talks over Greece’s bailout.
The administration of Tsipras, whose leftist Syriza Party won the January 25 elections, has tried to reach a deal on the repayment of some 240 billion euros it has received in bailouts since 2009. Over the past months, the cash-strapped country has been engaged in talks with its lenders aimed at unlocking a last EUR 7.2 billion (USD 7.8 billion) tranche of the loan promised to the country.
Greece has paid parts of its debt by cutting the reserve funds from some state-run enterprises.
Athens urgently needs money to finance itself and avoid a large-looming default. However, its creditors insist more reform is needed to ensure that the economy runs smoothly.
Experts speculate that if Greece defaults on its debt, it will exit the European Union, making it the first country to do so since the bloc was founded in 1993. Greece’s potential exit would then set a bad precedent for other cash-strapped countries within the union.
HDS/HJL/GHN
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