Brussels, 09/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 9 June, the European Commission confirmed that it had received new “suggestions” submitted that morning by Greece. Explaining, through its spokesperson Margaritis Schinas, that it had to study the suggestions before it could comment, the institution was tight-lipped about the contents of the document. In the corridors, as widely reported by the major press agencies, the impression was that the new document was insufficient or, at best, just a slight improvement on the one sent through last week.
At the end of the day, it's not about what the institutions think, a eurozone source told us, adding that it was mainly about whether the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French President, François Hollande, could accept it. They will be at leisure to discuss the matter with the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, this Wednesday, at a meeting on the sidelines of the EU-Latin America summit.
Two documents were sent by the Greeks on Tuesday morning: one on the debt and the arrangements to come into play after June, the same source told us, and the second focuses mainly on preparations for a staff-level agreement. The documents are shorter than the ones before, each one running to three pages. The document preparing for this staff-level agreement apparently fails to go into much detail about the possible measures, referring to higher VAT revenue without specifying what the rate will be, the same source went on. The Greeks were to review their copy on Tuesday afternoon. Additionally, the first document is reported to recommend that the European Stability Mechanism buy back the Greek bonds held by the ECB, which Greece is to reimburse over the summer for a total of €6.7 billion.
“I believe that the institutions and creditors have made so many concessions to the Greeks that I cannot imagine that there can be further concessions”, said Hans Joerg Schelling, the Austrian finance minister. “We will do everything to keep Greece in the eurozone, but our patience is running out”, said his Finnish opposite number, Alexander Stubb, who was meeting the German minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, in Berlin.
When asked about his meeting with his Greek counterpart the day before, Schäuble said that differences remained. (Elodie Lamer)