It should take place Wednesday o Thursday the new extraordinary Eurogroup on Greece. According to reports from Dow Jones, the Finance Minister of Austria said, Joerg Schelling, following today's preparatory meeting of the leaders' summit.
"The Greek proposal is a good, solid and complete working basis: it is now a question of evaluating its coherence", the Commissioner for Economic Affairs had previously said, Pierre Moscovici.
THE TURNING POINT AND THE CALENDAR
The president of the Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, confirmed that a new extraordinary meeting of finance ministers on Greece will be held this week. “We welcomed the new proposals, but since there was really too little time to examine them, the institutions involved could only give us a first impression,” she explained during a press conference.
“Now we need to examine the individual proposals in detail. If all goes well – he added – there will be another meeting of the Eurogroup later to have a definitive assessment”.
Having now learned that there has been a turning point in the negotiations with Greece, the question is whether it will be sufficient to ratify an agreement in the next few days. The fact that the Eurogroup explicitly speaks of an agreement to be reached within this week, deeming it "possible", as Dijsselbloem himself observed, confirms that the negotiations have reached their final stages.
The Eurogroup wants to deepen the coherence of the proposal and recognizes that it is a "comprehensive" proposal. This is new. European sources indicate that having a clear view of Greece's "priority actions" to achieve the set objectives implies having on the table "a calendar of initiatives" that must be taken by the government and Parliament in Greece.
THICKNESS AND COMPLETENESS
It is the first time that the creditors indicate that Athens' proposals have depth and completeness. This is what has allowed the Eurogroup to give everyone, Greece and the financial markets, a clear political signal. Pierre Moscovici, head of the European Commission for economic affairs, spoke of a "solid basis" for discussions. There is a goal: on Thursday the Eurogroup will meet again in Brussels and a few hours later the EU heads of state and government will meet. If everything goes smoothly, there are times to get to 30 June "covered", indicates a senior European official. At this point, the hastily convened Eurosummit at 19 pm today proves to be a bit useless. Useless from the point of view of the specific discussion on the points of the agreement: nothing can be done if the Commission, the ECB and the IMF do not prepare an accurate assessment of the proposal, a new negotiating "canvas" emerges and then the discussion between the ministers proceeds. Tonight's summit, however, is not useless for the purposes of a definitive political clarification with Tsipras: the discussion between the heads of state and government can "cement what was indicated by the finance ministers by avoiding subsequent reverses", indicates a European source.
In any case, there is a topic that is strictly relevant to the top political leaders: in what terms it will be evoked and treated the issue of Greek debt. The intervention for a lightening is one of the conditions requested by Tsipras to give up pensions and VAT. Governments will not be able to say either explicitly or covertly allude to a 'discount' of the debt. But something in terms of further debt relief they will have to give Greece. These would be the premises, then, to open negotiations on the third financial aid package from 1 July for which the figure of around 40 billion has been circulating for some time.
