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Greek drama

Another turn for the worse in Greek crisis

Greece’s central bank warns of a catastrophe without a bailout deal, but Athens and its creditors continue to fight.

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6/17/15, 12:34 PM CET

Updated 6/17/15, 11:20 PM CET

If there is no deal to rescue Greece from bankruptcy then the country faces an “uncontrollable crisis” of default and ejection from the Eurozone, the Greek central bank warned on Wednesday.

“Failure to reach an agreement would, on the contrary, mark the beginning of a painful course that would lead initially to a Greek default and ultimately to the country’s exit from the euro area and – most likely – from the European Union,” said the bank.

The central bank’s warning comes just a day before a meeting of Eurozone finance ministers, who again will try to find a resolution to four months of talks on releasing a final €7.2 billion tranche of Greece’s previous bailout.

Without that money Greece is likely to be unable to repay about €1.6 billion due to the International Monetary Fund on June 30. The end of the month also marks the formal end of Greece’s previous bailout program — without continued external support the government will be unable to pay its bills and the banking system faces collapse.

The atmosphere around the meeting is increasingly gloomy, although Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras did talk to Jean-Claude Juncker, the Commission president, by telephone on Wednesday and they have agreed to stay in touch, said Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble told lawmakers Wednesday he was not hopeful that Greece and its creditors could reach agreement. He told members of the German parliament’s finance committee that “no preparations” had been made to reach any decision, a lawmaker told journalists, speaking on condition of anonymity, according Agence France-Presse.

Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, has said no new Greek proposals would be presented at this week’s Eurogroup meeting. Tsipras is still planning to go ahead with a planned visit to Russia on the same day.

Although the Greek central bank noted that “it seems that a compromise has been reached on the main conditions attached to this agreement and that little ground remains to be covered,” the complicated politics surrounding talks between Greece’s anti-austerity, populist government and its three creditor institutions — the European Commission, European Central Bank and the IMF — have made it hugely difficult to bridge the gap between the two sides.

The tensions were apparent in the break between Juncker, until recently one of the few Greek allies among the institutions, and Tsipras.

On Tuesday night, Juncker blamed Tsipras for distorting creditor proposals, specifically whether they wanted a 10 percentage point increase in the VAT on electricity and a hike in taxes on medicines.

“I am blaming the Greeks [for telling] things to the Greek public which are not consistent with what I’ve told the Greek prime minister,” said Juncker, stressing he was not in favor of either idea. “The debate in Greece and outside Greece would be easier if the Greek government would tell exactly what the Commission… are really proposing.”

Tsipras has been blamed in the past for painting proposed reforms to the pension system in a gloomier light, suggesting that pensions will be cut, while creditors are instead keener to rein in early retirement.

He repeated his charges on Wednesday, warning creditors: “This insistence on cutting pensions is incomprehensible … if Europe insists on this incomprehensible fixation … it must accept the cost of a development that will benefit no one in Europe.”

On Tuesday, Tspiras had lambasted the EU and the IMF for demanding cuts to pensions and tax increases as a condition for releasing the bailout funds. They wanted to “humiliate not only the Greek government … but humiliate an entire people,” Tsipras said, adding the IMF bore “criminal responsibility” for the austerity measures he blames for tipping Greece into recession.

In fact, Greece was slowly returning to growth last year. But the conflict over the bailout has so worsened the atmosphere that the country fell back into recession this year.

Wednesday’s phone call between Tsipras and Juncker was the commission president’s first contact with the Greek government since Sunday, when talks between Athens an its creditors collapsed.

Tsipras’ Syriza government was elected four months ago on a promise of ending five years of austerity, which it blames for cutting the country’s GDP by a quarter and reducing many Greeks to penury.

The broad outlines of a deal to release the bailout funds have been clear for some time. The two sides are more or less in agreement over Greece running a primary budget surplus of 1 percent this year eventually rising to 3.5 percent.

But Greece’s creditors want ironclad promises of economic reforms and policy changes that make it likelier Greece will repay the money it has borrowed. Greece’s proposals so far have not satisfied them.

As the hours wind down to what the Greek central bank warns will end with a “deep recession, a dramatic decline in income levels, an exponential rise in unemployment and a collapse of all that the Greek economy has achieved over the years of its EU,” Athens is continuing to play hardball with its creditors.

“Time is close and the risk of worst case scenarios is certainly increasing,” said Mujtaba Rahman of the Eurasia Group analysis firm.

Authors:
Jan Cienski