Greek call with France, Germany ‘went well’

Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras had a conference call last night with the leaders of France and Germany to discuss progress in the talks between Athens and its lenders, officials said.

Greek call with France, Germany ‘went well’

The call with French president François Hollande and German chancellor Angela Merkel, the second in three days, lasted 35 minutes, “went very well”, and it was agreed that a deal must be completed very soon, the officials said.

The German government described the conversation as constructive but gave no further details.

Similar optimistic statements emanating from Greek officials in the past few days about “technical talks” in Brussels had not been echoed by other parties.

Tsipras was due to meet with Yannis Varoufakis, the finance minister, to discuss the results of the conference call.

Tsipras earlier had called on fellow European leaders to bypass technical talks and come to a political solution.

“If we have not reached an agreement with our partners, it’s not because of our intransigence or incomprehensible positions from the Greek side,” Tsipras said in a column published on French daily Le Monde’s website.

“It is rather because of the obsession of some institutional representatives who insist on unreasonable solutions and are being indifferent to the democratic result of recent Greek elections,” he wrote, adding European and international bodies were ready to be flexible.

He said the Greek government had been ready to make compromises, for instance on privatisations, despite its party’s ideological opposition to them.

Tsipras also responded to criticism that Greece was holding up a deal with the lenders because it resisted pension reforms and insisted on restoring collective bargaining.

He said Greece has committed to integrating pension funds and cutting down on early retirement but opposed any further cuts in pensions which have been slashed by up to 48% in the last five years.

“Currently, 44.5% of pensioners receive a pension under the fixed threshold of relative poverty while approximately 23.1% of pensioners, according to data from Eurostat, live in danger of poverty and social exclusion,” he said.

“These numbers...cannot be tolerated — not simply in Greece but in any civilised country.”

Tsipras said he was against a two-speed eurozone where the core would impose strict austerity rules via a “super eurozone finance minister” who would have the power to block any national budget not in line with extreme neo-liberal doctrines.

Meanwhile, in an interview in newspaper Corriere della Sera, George Stathakis, Greece’s economy minister, said yesterday he expected a deal in “a few days”, followed by a meeting of eurozone finance ministers to approve disbursement of the aid.

Asked whether the debt payment to the IMF on June 5 was at risk and there was a question of lumping it all together with other installments due next month, he said: “There shouldn’t be any need. No danger.”

Reuters/PA

More in this section

The Business Hub

Newsletter

News and analysis on business, money and jobs from Munster and beyond by our expert team of business writers.

Cookie Policy Privacy Policy Brand Safety FAQ Help Contact Us Terms and Conditions

© Examiner Echo Group Limited