Brussels, 08/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - Following a weekend during which the parties seemed to move further away from each other, Greece tried to re-establish dialogue, on Monday 8 June, by sending a delegation to the European Commission for political discussions. The minister of state and right-hand man of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Nikos Pappas, and the minister-delegate for international economic relations within the foreign ministry, Euclid Tsakalotos, met the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Pierre Moscovici, on Monday evening.
This latest attempt comes three days after a speech by Tsipras to the National Parliament provoked irritation in his partners. Tsipras said that the proposals submitted to him by the three institutions (Commission, ECB and IMF) at a meeting with the President of the Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, last Wednesday, had come as “an unpleasant surprise”. “I would never have imagined that the institutions would submit a proposal that would not take into account the common ground reached following the three-month negotiation with the Brussels Group”, Tsipras added. He said that with the Greek proposal, the only realistic working basis in his view, his government had put some water in its wine. “Our proposal demonstrated our sincere attitude for reaching a compromise, as it did not reflect the initial positions of the Greek government, but the result of the negotiations with the Brussels Group”, he explained.
The next day, at the G7 summit in Bavaria, Jean-Claude Juncker said that he was a little disappointed with Tsipras' speech. “He was presenting the offer of the three institutions as a 'take it or leave it' offer”, which was not the case, said Juncker. “I expect an alternative proposal from our Greek counterparts”, the Commission President went on to explain. Juncker also said that he had not spoken to Tsipras on the telephone as he had not received the Greek proposals as promised, having initially been expecting them on Thursday evening. The spokesperson to the Greek government, Gabriel Sakellaridis, denied suggestions that Tsipras telephoned Juncker on Saturday.
For his part, the Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, described the discussions he held on Monday with his German counterpart, Wolfgang Schäuble, as productive and amicable. “It is time for the mutual accusations to stop and it is time for us to do our work, to build upon months of efforts and to reach an agreement between Athens and its creditors”, Varoufakis said.
Tsipras will have the opportunity for talks with his French and German opposite numbers, on the sidelines of Wednesday's EU-Latin America summit. The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, warned on Monday that time was tight. The Eurogroup of 18 June is only ten days away and is to be prepared by the 'Euro working group', which is to meet three days before.
The parties hope that the consultations the Greeks are carrying out early this week will be able to result in a new document of Greek proposals for Wednesday.
On 30 June, the Greek authorities are due to pay back to the IMF several collective tranches of repayments for a total of €1.6 billion. According to a eurozone source, they do not have this money and not paying the IMF back would be disastrous. The Greek employment minister, Panos Skourletis, has awoken the spectre of early elections if the parties fail to reach an agreement, although Sakellaridis rejected this scenario earlier the same day. (Elodie Lamer)