A crucial – the most crucial – meeting between Greece and its creditors is taking place Sunday afternoon in Brussels. Greek delegates are to meet the representatives of the three Institutions IMF, EU, and the EFSF for a so-called “final effort” to reach an agreement on the Greek debt problem. According to international and mainly German press it is a Now or Never situation, with the creditors to press for an imminent agreement. Of course, provided that the Greek side will step down form its red lines and accept creditors’ austerity demands.
In this game of power and politics and much much less of economic importance, it is not clear who is to win more, who will lose less. Some struggle again to undermine the negotiations claiming that the most recent Greek proposals are not satisfactory.
Pressure is immense and the GREXIT scenario is being pushed forwards.
According to German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras last week that “if the Institutions won’t give a rash signal, the Eurogroup would prepare the process to throw Greece out of the euro zone.”
How will the Eurogroup manage to proceed with this process when there is no legal base for a Grexit is a mystery that most likely only Juncker and the F.A.Z. could answer. Oh, and the “EU source” that informed the German daily about it.
According to the same FAZ on Saturday, it was the IMF’s fault for the halt of negotiations on Thursday as it rejected the EC proposal. the IMF allegedly rejected EC proposal to allow Greece to postpone cuts in low-pensions and instead make cuts in military expenditure, some 400,000 euro. But the IMF allegedly rejected it saying “the IMF does not make bargains.”
I cannot tell you, how serious the threats and the deadlines are, but Greece has still time as its payments to IMF are due on June 30th. I have no idea why the creditors are on the verge of a nervous breakdown, if it is the Greeks who will default and not them. Unless their main problem is that they cannot agree among themselves.
Somewhere on the Internet, on a German mainstream media website, I read yesterday, that “German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble plans to have more Eurozone members default in their debts.”
PS Stop smoking and fasten seat belts to watch the euro havoc.
As nearly 95% of all Frankfurters will tell you FAZ’s source is clearly their toilet, they take it as their oracle but some times they forget even to push its button.