Eurozone Finance Ministers broke off talks on Monday without an agreement on Greece’s bailout, saying they aim to reach a deal later this week that might keep the country from defaulting and falling out of the currency union. The lack of a result leaves a summit of government leaders later in the day with few prospects of making any concrete decisions on the country’s crisis.
Greece needs more loans from its creditors, which include its fellow eurozone states and the International Monetary Fund, in time for June 30, when it faces a debt repayment it cannot afford. The country has been negotiating for four months what economic reforms it should make to get the money.
Earlier on Monday, the Greek government submitted proposals to its creditors aimed at breaking the deadlock over the crisis. Buying Greece critical time on Monday, the European Central Bank for a third time in less than a week increased its emergency funding to Greek lenders to stanch heavy deposit withdrawals, according to a Greek banking official with knowledge of the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“The latest proposals by Athens were a good basis for progress,” Martin Selmayr, a senior aide to European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, tweeted. The proposals, details of which have not been publicly disclosed, arrived shortly after midnight Sunday, according to another aide to Juncker.
No high expectations Ahead of the meetings in Brussels, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European officials had warned against expecting too much on Monday. Markets had rallied strongly in the morning on hopes that new proposals for reforms submitted by the Greek government over the weekend would pave the way for a deal.
European Union leaders have a two-day summit starting on Thursday and hopes are a full agreement can be reached then.
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutchman who heads the eurozone Finance Minister meetings, said negotiators would be using proposals made this weekend by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras as a basis for further talks. “It’s an opportunity to get that deal this week.”
