EU’s Juncker declines Tsipras call as proposals missing, source says
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker declined on Saturday to take a phone call from Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras because Athens has not yet sent in reform proposals that it promised for Thursday, an EU official said.
“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 official said.
“There have been no new developments so there was nothing to discuss,” the official said.
Tsipras was also due to return to Brussels for further discussions in person on Friday, but didn’t.
Instead he spurned “absurd” terms of proposed aid from lenders in Greek parliament and delayed a debt payment to the International Monetary Fund.
In a defiant speech aimed at winning parliament’s backing for his rejection of the austerity-for-aid package, Tsipras balanced indignation with confidence that a deal was “closer than ever before” to keep his country inside the currency bloc.
“We know that it is in part theater, but we don’t have to play a part in every scene of the drama,” the EU official said.
[Reuters]
