“We are prepared for all kinds of events but I am excluding at 100 percent this Grexit, or Greek exit,” said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
The EC President spoke to The Politico newspaper about negotiations between Greece and international creditors stressing Greece’s lack of cooperation. He said that Greece’s intransigence is putting the whole European economy at risk.
This lack of cooperation makes a bailout agreement distant, Juncker said. However, it is very unlikely that Athens would default or exit from the common currency bloc, he added.
Juncker further noted that the reason Greece will avoid default and a subsequent exit from the euro is not because it will present a credible package of reforms and come to an agreement with partners, but because the alternative would be catrastrophic. He declined to elaborate on the possible disastrous scenarios, but he told The Politico that if Greece goes bankrupt, that would “lead us to consequences that people don’t know the amplitude about.”
The European official said that Greece is refusing any austerity measures creditors require. At the moment, there are ongoing negotiations between the Greek technical team and lenders’ representatives in Paris. However, Juncker told The Politico, the Greek side has not been very cooperative and the Greek proposals are not very clear.
“I am highly preoccupied that the Greek government will let us know in time what is happening,” he said. “We need clarity and haven’t gotten it. I had lost patience in the meantime. Now I regained patience and do not want to lose it again.”
Juncker and other euro zone officials are frustrated that Athens is blocking its European creditors from viewing pertinent documents in Greek ministries.
“They are not collaborating in the way we would like them to collaborate because our team down in Athens, our technical fact-finding team, is not allowed to enter the ministries, which is not just curious but even unacceptable,” the Politico report concludes.
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