German Chancellor Says Greek Diplomacy is Failing

February 4, 2015 Share Print 0

German Chancellor Angela Merkel indicated that a diplomatic offensive by newly elected Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to ease bailout-aid requirements is failing to win over converts.

“I don’t think that the positions of the member states within the euro area with regard to Greece differ, at least in terms of substance,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin after meeting with Malta’s premier, Joseph Muscat.

While Tsipras has retreated from demands for a writedown of Greece’s debt, yielding to virtually unanimous opposition in the 19-member bloc, his pledge to increase spending and roll back austerity threatens to collide with conditions of aid commitments totaling 240 billion euros ($275 billion).

Tsipras and his finance chief, Yanis Varoufakis, fanned out this week across Europe after their Syriza party’s anti-austerity campaign swept them into office, upending Greece’s political establishment. Their demands for overhauling the terms of Greece’s bailout package have been met with resistance and alarm in Berlin and Brussels.

“We want to re-correct this framework, not to smash this framework,” Tsipras told reporters today in Brussels after meeting European Parliament President Martin Schulz. “We believe that with this framework, we would find a common viable solution for our peoples, a common perspective.”

via Bloomberg

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Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse

Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.