Greek-Eurozone Talks Fail to Make Progress

The Greek government’s confrontation with its eurozone creditors over its campaign to relieve its staggering debt burden while relaxing the terms of five years of austerity resulted in stalemate late on Wednesday.

The first proper negotiations between Greece and eurozone finance ministers failed to make any progress or result in a joint statement. While no immediate agreement had been expected, the emergency meeting had been tipped to produce a framework for talks to be finessed over the next few days before another meeting next Monday.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who chaired the Brussels meeting, announced that this aim was not met. It appeared that the new leftwing government in Athens was isolated in seeking to extract better terms from Europe.

Alexis Tsipras, the new Greek prime minister, seems to have ordered his finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, to stand firm against the pressure to make any concessions. Tsipras is due in Brussels on Thursday for his debut on the European stage at an EU summit.

Following 10 days of touring Europe in a failed attempt to woo Berlin, Frankfurt and other key capitals to alter the terms of trade between Athens and the eurozone, Varoufakis went into negotiations with the other finance ministers at a specially convened session in Brussels. Entering and leaving the meeting, he was uncharacteristically taciturn.

via The Guardian

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