Brussels, 02/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - The Commission has found a starting point to discuss the way forward with Greece, its spokesperson, Margaritis Schinas, announced on Monday 2 February. The Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, told Bloomberg over the weekend that he was hoping for a mutually beneficial agreement with the eurozone, which would “in no way entail that Greece will not fulfil its loan obligations to the ECB and the IMF”. “On this basis, we are ready to hear the Greek government”, said Schinas.
As part of his European tour, alongside his finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, Tsipras will visit the Commission on Wednesday, before continuing on to Paris. Any solution will require the unanimous agreement of the eurozone states, Schinas stressed. Varoufakis plans to present detailed proposals at the end of this month and held an initial exchange of views on Sunday with Pierre Moscovici, the commissioner for economic and monetary affairs. The Greeks are looking for a bit of budgetary space and a reduction of their debt. Varoufakis told the French daily newspaper Le Monde that he hoped to “re-initialise the programme”, which has been based thus far on “incorrect logic”: specifically, the “constant recourse to indebtedness without thinking of the future and the absence of reforms. We will put a stop to that” (our translation).
Following a meeting with the Greek minister on Monday, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, “urged” his Greek opposite number to “act responsibly”.
The country will not be asking for any new loans, reiterated Varoufakis, who went on to stress that it was perfectly possible “in conjunction with the ECB to establish the liquidity provisions that are necessary”. The country must pay €2.3 billion back to the IMF at the end of this month, and then €6.7 billion to the ECB in July and €15 billion to Greek banks. However, the Greek daily newspaper Kathimerini claims that there is less than two billion left in the state's coffers, particularly because the Greeks stopped paying their taxes during the election period. “We will be paying the money back”, said Economy Minister Giorgios Stathakis, in an interview with Der Spiegel, but he did not clarify how. (EL)