Greece offers new proposals ahead of emergency summit

ATHENS/BRUSSELS | By Lefteris Papadimas and Jan Strupczewski

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras waves hand as he gets into a car after a wreath-laying ceremony at the statue of Russian-born founder of modern Greek state Ioannis Kapodistrias in St. Petersburg, Russia, June 19, 2015.

Reuters/Maxim Shemetov

ATHENS/BRUSSELS Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras made a new offer on a reforms package to foreign creditors on Sunday, signaling eleventh-hour concessions to break a deadlock that has pushed Greece to the brink of bankruptcy.
After months of wrangling and with anxious depositors pulling billions of euros out of Greek banks, Tsipras's leftist government showed a new willingness this weekend to make concessions that would unlock frozen aid to avert default.

French President Francois Hollande, on a visit to Milan, confirmed Greece had submitted new proposals. EU diplomats said the proposal had not arrived but representatives from the country's European and IMF creditors were set to meet at 1500 GMT (11.00 a.m. EDT) on Sunday to discuss it.
It was not immediately clear how far the new proposal yielded to creditors' demands for additional spending cuts and tax hikes, but the offer was a ray of hope that a last-minute deal may yet be wrangled before Athens runs out of cash.

A day before emergency meetings including a summit of euro zone leaders in Brussels, Tsipras was holed up in a marathon cabinet meeting and discussed the new offer with the leaders of Germany, France and the European Commission by phone.

"The prime minister presented the three leaders Greece's proposal for a mutually beneficial agreement that will give a definitive solution and not a postponement of addressing the problem," a statement from Tsipras's office said.

Tsipras, elected on a pledge to end austerity, has defiantly resisted demands to cut pension spending. But Greek officials have suggested Athens may be willing to consider raising value-added-taxes or other levies to appease the lenders.

"There is no time to lose. Every day counts. Talks and negotiations must continue so that an agreement is reached," Hollande told a joint news conference with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
Locked out of bond markets and with bailout aid frozen since summer last year, Athens is quickly running out of cash. The deputy finance minister on Sunday confirmed Athens had enough money to pay public sector wages and pensions this month.

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• But Athens also urgently needs access to funds to avoid defaulting on a 1.6 billion euro IMF loan that falls due at the end of the month. As the crisis gets pushed from one meeting to the next, each side has put the responsibility on the other's shoulder for finding a deal.

Money has drained out of Greek banks after a breakdown in talks last weekend, and Greece might have to impose capital controls within days if there is no breakthrough.
Sources in Frankfurt and in Brussels said the European Central Bank's board would discuss the liquidity of Greece's banking sector at 0830 GMT on Monday. The sources said Greek pre-orders for deposit withdrawals for Monday had already reached 1 billion euros - after savers pulled over 4 billion euros out of their banks last week.

European ministers have played down the prospect of a final agreement on Monday but hope a political understanding can be reached in time for a full deal by the end of June.

NO TO BLACKMAIL

For a deal to work, Tsipras will need a solution that is acceptable to his party or else may be pushed to call a snap election or a referendum to secure a mandate for an agreement.

His Syriza party was due to hold a rally in Athens on Sunday to send "a loud message of resistance" against demands for more cuts and tax hikes in a country battered by years of recession.
Under the austerity measures imposed by the IMF, the European Union and the European Central Bank in two bailouts, Greece's economic output has fallen 25 percent, wages and pensions have been slashed, and one in four Greeks is jobless.

The Greek government has argued the austerity imposed on the southern European country had made the crisis worse. A senior Syriza lawmaker said on Sunday that previous ideas put forward by Juncker would have led to a "social holocaust".
"Democracy cannot be blackmailed, dignity cannot be bargained," the Syriza party said in a statement on Sunday, announcing its planned protest.

"Workers, the unemployed, young people, the Greek people and the rest of the peoples of Europe will send a loud message of resistance to the alleged one-way path of austerity, resistance to the blackmail and scare-mongering."

But the mood has also hardened in Germany, which has contributed more money than any other country to bailing out Greece. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is under pressure from within her ranks not to give in to Greek demands, even if that means contemplating Greece leaving the euro zone.

Merkel's Bavarian allies warned against giving in to Greece, with senior Christian Social Union lawmaker Hans Michelbach saying he saw no realistic chance of an agreement on Monday.

"If the EU lets the government in Athens get away with its intransigence, we can bury the euro," Michelbach said in a statement on Sunday.

"Either Greece declares itself willing for a viable solution or the country must leave the euro. The euro zone could cope with the consequences of a Greek exit," he said