Brussels, 04/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - The Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, said that he was optimistic that a mutually beneficial agreement would be reached with the eurozone regarding the outcome of the bailout plan for his country, following a European tour which took him to Brussels on Wednesday 4 February.
Tsipras did the rounds of the European institutions. First of all, he met the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker. The Commission reported only that the two men had agreed not to continue their discussions through the media. This was the only information that filtered out from the European institution.
According to AFP, the need for an interim agreement to give the Greek authorities time to lay down a joint reform plan over three years is reported to have been raised by Tsipras.
Following his meeting with the Greek leader, the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, said that he had stressed the need for a solution acceptable to all eurozone states. He anticipates tough negotiations which “will require cooperation, dialogue and determined efforts from Greece”.
The President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, said that Greece was fighting for European cooperation, not for Greek separation. Tsipras, who then set off for Paris, said that no agreement had yet been reached, but that talks were heading in the right direction. Stressing that the history of the EU was a history of “disagreement but at the end of the day, of compromises”, he stressed his willingness to reach a viable and mutually acceptable agreement with the euro area. Calling for Greece's sovereignty to be respected, he pledged to respect European rules in turn, and expressed his confidence following the series of meetings he held with his European partners. We want to “re-correct this framework, not smash it”, the Greek leader stressed.
The German minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has already hit out at the unilateral declarations made by Greece: halting privatisations, cancelling civil servant redundancies, increasing the minimum wage.
According to a document leaked onto the Internet and destined for Thursday's meeting of a group of experts on the euro at the Council, Germany states that the Eurogroup needs a clear commitment from the Greeks on the full implementation of the key reforms necessary to keep the programme on track. Schäuble is to meet the Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, in Berlin this Thursday.
The ministers are likely to see each other again on Wednesday 11 February at an extraordinary Eurogroup to prepare the discussions on Greece of the heads of state and government of the EU at the European summit of Thursday 12 February.
On Wednesday, the Finnish Prime Minister, Alexander Stubb, showed his hand. There is no reason for Greece to be treated any differently from the other countries which have received financial assistance, he told the national parliament. Some countries which have already been the subject of a financial bailout, such as Portugal and Spain (both countries led by centre-right governments), seem disinclined to make any further gestures towards Athens following the sacrifices they have had to impose on their own citizens.
In Paris with President François Hollande, Tsipras pledged to fight tax fraud and the clientelist state. Following his visit to the ECB on Wednesday, Varoufakis in turn promised to reform the country in a way that has never been seen before and with a determination hitherto lacking. He referred to useful discussions with the ECB, with that institution set to take position, the same day, on extending the granting of emergency liquidity (ELA) in favour of the Greek banks. Earlier, in an interview with the weekly newspaper Die Zeit, he said that the ECB should “support our banks so that we can stay afloat”.
Speaking to the Italian newspaper Repubblica the day before, Varoufakis explained that he wished to replace the loans from the IMF and the countries of the Eurozone with new market-price bonds, with a clause regarding repayment annexed to the solidity of growth in Greece.
The Greek Ministry of Finance went on to confirm that Varoufakis had met IMF officials in Paris last weekend. For its part, the IMF has denied having held talks with the Greek authorities regarding a change to the general framework of the debt, AFP reports. (EL)