Seven hours they were sitting in the Lex-building in Brussels, Greek Finance Mninister Yanis Varoufakis did not manage to persuade the Eurogroup Finance Ministers to find a compromise with the Greek position. The talks failed as the German-led eurogroup on one side and Greece on the other could not agree on crucial points like “extension” and “amendment” of the “bailout program”. Therefore at the end of the day, no joint statement was issued.
We had lots of discussions “covering a lot of ground, also making progress, but not enough progress at this point to come to joint conclusion,” Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem told media right after the meetingand stressed “For some, an extension of the bailout programme was the preferred option, but we are not quite there yet.” He pointed out to the next meeting on Monday, February 16th, saying “We will discuss this more on Monday.”
To the press questions they followed his statement, Dijsselbloem apparently gave the same monotonous answer, that is “there was no political agreement on the technical details”.
For his part, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis told reporters that it is out of question to accept an extension of the current bailout, which he called a “failed experiment” which has run the Greek economy into the ground and assured that there would be “no unilateral, aggressive moves from our part, we’re simply asking for some time to table proposals.”
“The meeting of the Eurogroup was never meant to reach an agreement, Varoufakis said further adding:
“There was no request for extension. Some said that there is a loan agreement and that we need to expand it. We explained that we were elected in order to question the logic of this program. That we have no problem to continue our cooperation with the three organizations, the EU, the ECB, the IMF, with our partners and the Eurogroup but our goal is that there will be a balance between different principles that conflict with each other. One principle is that you have an agreement, a contract. This is valid. We may have not signed this contract, it was signed by others before us and this binds us.”
Varoufakis said also that there were a lot of convergence points with some, and some with all,” participants.
Skai TV reported this morning that the German position was supported also by the other bailout countries, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, out of fear that if there were to be concession to Greece, they would come under pressure in their own countries.
In Athens, government spokesman Gavriil Sakellaridis confirmed on Thursday morning, that the “extension for the completion of this program,” as expressed in the draft communique of the Eurogroup, was the reason why Athens did not signed it.
“We did not sign the joint statement as it called for the completion of the current program and that Greece had to request an extension for the completion of this program.”
Three drafts of joint statement?
Media reported that three different joint statements were drafted. A version of the drafted joint statement was leaked to the press and was uploaded by the Financial Times and later by Reuters. According to the leaked draft, the joint statement did indeed mentioned the word “bridge” but not in he sense Greece has it in mind.
“On this basis, we will now start technical work on the further assessment of Greece’s reform plans. The Greek authorities have agreed to work closely and constructively with the institutions to explore the possibilities for extending and successfully concluding the present programme taking into account the new government’s plans. If this is successful this will bridge the time for the Greek authorities and the Eurogroup to work on possible new contractual arrangements.” (Full draft obtained by REUTERS here)
Greece want a “bridge program” to cover its funding needs until end of August and then negotiate a replacement of the bailout program for the time after.
According to To Vima newspaper, disagreement was on sentence “extend, amend and conclude” and the word “current” that was to be added before “program”.
Greece disagreed with “extend”, while Germany did not accept “amend”.
Varoufakis anger with FT
According to media reports, FinMin Yanis Varoufakis and deputy PM in charge of finances Yiannis Dragasakis informed Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on the wording of the draft. They were both skeptical and negative towards the wording, made several phone calls to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras who did not give the green light to sign the joint statement. PM Tsipras was already in Brussels for today’s EU Leaders Summit.
However, Economic newspaper Financial Times claimed that Varoufakis had agreed to the joint statement but that he stepped back after Varoufakis contacted PM Tsipras. This angered angered Varoufakis who twitted to FT journalist:
@SpiegelPeter @ftbrussels Might I suggest that you refrain from dubious claims based on even more dubious leaks? It’s rather unseemly
— Yanis Varoufakis (@yanisvaroufakis) February 12, 2015
Greece: Four principles but no paper?
Citing two euro zone officials, Bloomberg reports that Varoufakis presented his European counterparts with four principles for a new financing deal: a deal that provides for financial stability, financial sustainability and debt restructuring, while addressing Greece’s humanitarian crisis.
Also other media claimed that Varoufakis did not hand out a text with the full Greek proposals.
But it turns out these are only malicious claims as according to some Greek media Varoufakis presented a list of proposals in terms of funding and reforms.
Not many had thought that there would have been a decision during the extraordinary Eurogroup on Thursday. After all, it was the first eurogroup meeting with Greece’s new government.
A decision is expected on the regular eurogroup meeting on Monday, February 16th 2015.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has the chance to find some allies at the EU Leaders Summit. But certainly not in Germany, as Chancellor Angela Merkel spent some 16 hours in a room with Holland, Putin and Poroschenko trying to work out a solution for the Ukraine.
More sources: zougla.gr (on FT in Greek)
