Talks between Greece and finance ministers from the 19-country eurozone in Brussels ended early as Athens rejected the offer to extend and make no changes to the \u20ac240 billion loan.<\/p>\n
Greece\u2019s leftist Syriza party, elected on the promise that it would end austerity measures, is demanding changes to the country\u2019s massive bailout, which expires on Feb.28.<\/p>\n
“There is some flexibility in the current bailout program, but Athens must also stick to its main principles and targets,” Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem told reporters after the meeting.<\/p>\n
However, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis told reporters in Brussels after the meeting, “Our government was elected to challenge the philosophy of the program….the idea [of] ‘some flexibility’ was highly problematic for us.”<\/p>\n
Varoufakis said he was ready to sign a draft communique that would allow an extension of the bailout program for a period of four months on the condition that it would not impose recessionary measures.<\/p>\n
“For instance, no cuts in lowest of pensions, no VAT (Value-Added Tax) hikes during this period, especially in regions of Greece that in the beginning of summer required all the assistance it can get to boost tourism,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Unfortunately, that document I was prepared to sign was withdrawn minutes before the Eurogroup (meeting) began and was replaced with another document,” he added.<\/p>\n
A new Greek program would not be very different, the Eurogroup president said.<\/p>\n
“It would have to be based on three principles: fiscal and debt sustainability, reforming its economy to make it more competitive, and ensuring the stability of its financial sector,” Dijsselbloem added.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the talks, Germany\u2019s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble had said that he was “very skeptical” about reaching a solution.<\/p>\n
The meeting is the latest attempt to find a way forward to the row after ministers discussed the dispute last Wednesday.<\/p>\n
European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis told reporters after the meeting that “everyone’s disappointed.”<\/p>\n
Emergency funding<\/p>\n
The meeting comes after the European Central Bank last week announced a $5 billion emergency loan to Greek banks, which have seen a run on their deposits as Greeks removed their savings out of concern the bailout crisis would not be resolved.<\/p>\n
The European Central Bank has stopped accepting Greek bonds and state-guaranteed bank bonds as collateral for bank funding, meaning the only source Greek banks have for euro liquidity is emergency funding from the European Central Bank.<\/p>\n
The newly-elected Greek government has announced it does not wish to extend its bailout deal under which the country maintains payments on its \u20ac316 billion ($357 billion) debt.<\/p>\n
Greece has until Feb. 28 to come to an agreement with its international creditors or the government will run out of public funds.<\/p>\nError, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 9)<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Greece rejected Monday a six-month extension of its bailout program proposed by its eurozone partners. Greece’s new government was elected to challenge the philosophy of the bailout program, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,63,51,17,14],"tags":[1556,858,76197,76196,76198],"class_list":["post-56663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-economy","category-europe","category-world","tag-european-commission","tag-greece","tag-greek-finance-minister","tag-greek-finance-minister-yanis-varoufakis","tag-yanis-varoufakis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}