Brussels, 12/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - On the night of 11 to 12 February, the European finance ministers parted company from each other without sealing an agreement on a joint declaration as to the way forward in the negotiations for the next stages of the Greek bailout plan ahead of the Eurogroup meeting of Monday 16 February.
The European financial policy-makers did, however, come almost within reach of an agreement on the text. The German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, left the Eurogroup shortly before 11.00p.m., when he felt that the ministers were all singing from the same hymn sheet. However, a telephone call to Athens made after the German minister left by his Greek counterpart, Yanis Varoufakis, changed the game. According to several sources, following a discussion with the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, lasting around half an hour, Varoufakis informed his colleagues that he could not give the declaration his backing.
Tsipras could not take the political risk of coming to his first European summit this Thursday with a declaration explicitly committing Greece to an extension of the current aid plan, given that demonstrations supporting the tough stance of the new Greek government took place in several Greek and European cities, including Brussels, on Wednesday.
The Eurogroup draft declaration sought common ground on the measures that the new Greek government would be prepared to carry forward from the current programme, which expires at the end of February. On this basis, the Greek authorities would have agreed to consider the possibility of extending the bailout plan. In this draft text, the prospect of an agreement on Monday 16 February on extending the bailout plan is reported to have been felt too explicit by Athens. Greece also wanted to see greater emphasis laid on the social plank of the measures.
“It's not about the form, but the quality of progress we have made”, said Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem, at a short press conference that was fairly pessimistic in its tone. He talked about intensive and constructive discussions that had covered a lot of ground, “including the future of the current programme”. “Greece is currently under a programme which expires at the end of the month, which clearly lays down the amount of time we have: and we talked about extending” the bailout plan, he stated, adding that this was the preferred option of several of the ministers.
Even so, the Eurogroup was not able to put anything down in black and white about the process to govern the coming negotiations. My initial intention was to do this, “but we were not in a position to do so”, Dijsselbloem admitted. According to the Belgian minister, Johan Van Overtveldt, the technical work will continue in the coming days despite the absence of written conclusions.
“We discussed all the facets of the Greek crisis and the way the Eurogroup can facilitate the transition to a new phase in the history of the Greek social economy, so we can overcome the deflationary crisis and the humanitarian crisis”, said Varoufakis. Pleased to have the opportunity to defend the Greek position and to have heard those of his European opposite numbers, he expressed his hopes that the Eurogroup meeting of 16 February would reach an “optimum” solution for all. “The fact that we have a fresh mandate (political in Greece, Editor's note) doesn't give us the right to do whatever we want, but it does give us a right to be heard”, he said, referring to the possibility for his country to enter into a “new contract” with its European partners. Blowing somewhat hot and cold, he went on to stress that “Greece would never agree to stay in this programme because for us, this programme is catastrophic”.
The European commissioner for economic and financial affairs, Pierre Moscovici, went no further than to say that the meeting had been useful to “clarify Greece's vision on its situation”, but also to clarify how the other member states see the country's situation.
Several veteran attendees of Eurogroup meetings said that they could hardly ever remember seeing two camps being so clearly drawn up, with Greece completely isolated against the other 18 countries of the eurozone. The fact that the demands being made by Athens are fairly unstructured at the moment was also highlighted. No written proposal has been submitted by Greece, the Finnish minister pointed out. He had been set to hold bilateral talks with Varoufakis, but this meeting had to be shelved as the official negotiations went on for too long.
A political agreement at the Eurogroup meeting of 16 February is vital to allow all states whose internal procedures require it to ratify the agreement in plenty of time before the Greek bailout plan comes to an end with the month of February. If this cannot be done, Greece would lose its next tranche of aid (€1.8 billion from the EFSF, €1.9 billion and around €10 billion reserved for the capitalisation of the Greek banks) and would struggle to honour its next debt repayments (€4.7 billion to the IMF and €6.6 billion to the ECB over the period between March and August 2015). However, Varoufakis is confident that the Greek government will be able to find the money. (Elodie Lamer with Mathieu Bion)