EUROPEAN Union (EU) finance ministers have said that Greece must do
more to prove it will honour its debts. Eurozone finance ministers told
their Greek counterpart that Athens must go beyond an initial set of
proposals for reforms if it wants them to open negotiations on a
bailout, eurozone sources say.
Several sources said there was consensus among the other 18 ministers
around the table during the “exceptionally difficult” talks that the
leftist government in Athens must take further steps to convince them it
would honour any new debts. Greek officials, European finance ministers
and leaders held talks in Brussels to decide whether to negotiate a
third bailout for Greece to steer it away from imminent bankruptcy.
Al Jazeera said Saturday’s talks wrapped up “with a real sense of
distrust coming from a lot of the Eurogroup”. A full summit of all 28
European Union leaders voted on Greece’s proposal yesterday. Earlier on
Saturday, the Greek parliament backed a proposed bailout package with
painful austerity measures from Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’
government, with 251 of 300 MPs voting in favour of the package.
Such harsh austerity measures were something his leftist party was
elected to counter. Officials have voiced concern over whether or not
Greece can be trusted to stick to the proposed reforms, which include
spending cuts in areas such as pensions and tax hikes, to secure a
three-year bailout of $59bn.
“We are still far away. It looks quite complicated,” said Eurogroup
chairman and Dutch finance minister, Jeroen Dijsselbloem. “On both
content and the more complicated question of trust, even if it’s all
good on paper, the question is whether it will get off the ground and
will it happen.
So I think we are facing a difficult negotiation,” Dijsselbloem
said. Michel Sapin, the French finance minister, echoed Dijsselbloem’s
concerns, saying that trust was a major issue in the negotiations.
“Confidence has been ruined by every Greek government over many years
which have sometimes made promises without making good on them at all,”
Sapin said, adding: “Today, we need to have confidence again, to have
certainty that decisions which are spoken of are decisions which are
actually taken by the Greek government”.
Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, was optimistic and told Al
Jazeera in Rome on Thursday – the day the reform proposals were sent to
its eurozone creditors – that if the Greek parliament approved the
proposal, “I think then next Monday Greece will be in the eurozone and
the emergency for Greece will be solved.”
He said: “The real challenge for Greece in this moment is give a
message of structural change in the country.” There are international
calls to give Greece some debt relief, and within the European body,
these have also come from European Council President Donald Tusk who
will chaired yesterday’s emergency summit on Greece’s future.
Yesterday eurozone leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel
and French President Francois Hollande will meet to endorse the decision
or to mitigate the fallout of a financial collapse, which could include
humanitarian aid.
Banks in Greece have been closed for two weeks and if a deal is not
reached when the markets open on today, some banks could collapse.
A “Grexit” would make Greece the first country to leave the eurozone
and its departure would have unpredictable ramifications on both Greece
and the global financial markets. Nina Schick, a European policy
analyst, told Al Jazeera that negotiations could be difficult when
France and Germany had opposing positions, with Germany requiring more
of Greece.
Shick said there were reports that France sent over a team of French
experts to Greece to help Greek officials put together their latest
offer, which did not impress Germany’s Merkel, who wants harsher
conditions.
EU demands ‘Greece Do More’ For Debt Bailout
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EU demands ‘Greece Do More’ For Debt Bailout
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