Tsipras and Juncker in new talks on reform plan
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker met Wednesday amid last-ditch talks on the country’s disputed reform plan, a Greek government source said.
“The two leaders exchanged views in a detailed manner and in a constructive climate, and agreed to meet tomorrow,” the source said.
Tsipras saw Juncker on the sidelines of an EU-Latin America summit in Brussels.
The meeting had not been announced by the Greek PM’s office in advance.
Tsipras is also seeking to see German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande during the conference.
Both said they were ready to meet the 40-year-old Greek PM, who is under pressure from his radical left party to reject any agreement containing further austerity.
Greece is in a race against time to secure a new loan deal with its EU-IMF creditors by the end of June, before its existing multi-billion bailout expires.
Failure to agree will see Greece fail to get 7.2 billion euros in promised loans and could lead to a debt default and a messy exit from the eurozone.
The radical left government in Athens, elected in January on an anti-austerity ticket, has submitted a series of alternative reform proposals to the creditors.
But the EU had earlier in the day rejected Athens’s new bailout reform plan.
[AFP]
