Greece ‘willing to compromise’ on IMF/EU debt deal

Greece is willing to compromise to reach a deal with its EU/IMF creditors that is acceptable to both sides and is ready to negotiate until the end of June to achieve this, the Athens government said yesterday.

The comments struck a more conciliatory note after prime minister Alexis Tsipras’s outright rejection of a proposal from lenders last week, and suggested Athens is willing to make concessions despite anger within the ruling Syriza party over the austerity cuts needed to secure an agreement.

Tsipras yesterday rejected as “absurd” international creditors’ terms for a cash-for-reform deal to keep Greece from default, prompting an angry response from European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.

However, government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis also left open the possibility of another extension to Greece’s bailout, a programme that Tsipras had promised to scrap when he was elected earlier this year.

“Definitely our proposal is the starting point,” Sakellaridis told a news conference yesterday.

“The mission of the Greek delegation is to explore the possibility of a solution that satisfies both sides.”

In comments which appeared more conciliatory than Tsipras’s broadside last Friday, Sakellaridis said that Athens aimed “to have a lot of political negotiations through all this time until the end of the month so that there is a positive outcome”.

Reuters