Still ‘long way to go’ for Greek debt deal, Germany
Germany on Wednesday said talks on a final debt deal to avert a default by Athens were still far from finished, and stressed that acceptance by all three international creditors was essential.
“Our impression is that we have a long way to go,” finance ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said.
After Green Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras launched a veiled attack on the International Monetary Fund over its apparent “non-acceptance” of certain proposals, Jaeger said: “There can only be a solution in the end that is backed by the three (lender) institutions,” referring to the European Union, the European Central Bank and the IMF.
“That applies in particular for the IMF,” he added.
Jaeger told reporters that Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was going with “realistic expectations” into a meeting in Brussels later Wednesday with his eurozone counterparts.
And he said that after the creditors had proved “extraordinarily generous” to Athens in their proposals to resolve the crisis, “we now believe it is up to the Greek side to move”.
A German government source said later that an agreement without the IMF was “unimaginable.”
“That position won’t change in the coming days,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A source told AFP earlier that the IMF did not accept Greek proposals, submitted on Monday to creditors, which increase taxes on high-earners and lift employers’ pension contributions back to pre-crisis levels.
Those contributions had been reduced by the previous Greek government as part of an economic recovery plan.
The stance drew an angry attack from Tsipras.
“The non-acceptance of some of our alternative proposals by certain institutions has never been done before — not for Ireland or Portugal,” he said in comments which he later tweeted.
“This strange position maybe hides two things: either they do not want an agreement or they are serving specific interests in Greece.”
Greece and its creditors have been locked in a stand-off since Tsipras was elected in January, the EU-IMF demanding reforms before unlocking the last 7.2 billion euros of Greece’s bailout before it expires on June 30 — the same day when Athens must make an IMF loan repayment of around 1.5 billion euros. [AFP]
