Merkel Demands Action From Greece to Cement Euro Membership

German Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded urgent action from the Greek government to cement its position as a member of the single currency.

Merkel said that fellow Group of Seven leaders meeting in Schloss Elmau, southern Germany, shared her goal of keeping Greece in the currency bloc and also backed her insistence that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras must deliver an economic program that can satisfy the country’s creditors.

“There isn’t much time left, that’s the problem,” Merkel said at a press conference on Monday following the G-7 meeting. “Every day counts now.”

Greece and its creditors are wrangling over the measures required to unlock as much as 7.2 billion euros ($8 billion) of aid from its bailout program and avert a chain reaction that could see the nation pushed out of the euro. A solution to the negotiations should be reached before June 14 but further high-level meetings will only happen if there is a chance of a deal, a French government official told reporters on the condition of anonymity.

“A faster resolution is in Greece’s interest,” French President Francois Hollande told reporters after the meeting. “If we want to move forward, it would be necessary to have technical talks, in the hours and the days to come, so that the proposals that aren’t working for the Greeks are replaced by alternative proposals.”

Bloomberg

Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.