Greece continues sending new proposals over the debt issue but creditors continue to reject them as lacking, thereby prolonging the impasse in negotiations, says a Financial Times report.
According to the report, European Commission officials in Brussels have called this constant exchange of papers between the two sides “paperology.”
However, in the past few days the air of optimism that the two sides are closer to an agreement has given way to fear and suspicion. With the extension of the bailout program expiring at the end of June, the fear of Greece’s bankruptcy is prevailing.
According to the report, officials from various institutions involved in the talks say that Greece’s leftist government is hoping that lenders will back down at the last minute and give out bailout cash with very few obligations.
“They do not want a deal with us; they just want debt relief. I don’t think they will move. I think they’re waiting for us to blink, and we won’t,” a senior official with one of Athens’ bailout monitors is quoted saying after reviewing Greece’s latest proposal.
Greece has lost its most valuable ally in negotiations and that is the European Commission, the report continues. According to officials briefed on Tuesday’s meeting of 29 commissioners in Strasbourg, EC President Jean-Claude Juncker said that Athens had “lost the European Commission.”
On Monday night Athens submitted a new proposal cutting the budget surplus target difference in half and asking creditor to do the same. However, officials who reviewed the proposal said that there was no discussion of how the revenues for narrowing the fiscal gap would be achieved, particularly in the “thorny” areas of raising value added tax or on pension cuts.
Furthermore, Athens brought to the table for the second time the issue of debt restructuring, something that creditors have rejected until the final review of the existing bailout program is completed.
The report says that there are shadows on Wednesday’s meeting in Brussels between Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande. The EC president said already that he refuses to meet with Tsipras, expressing his displeasure over the Greek PM’s attitude at last week’s meeting.
Another senior euro zone official involved in negotiations said, “My take is that [the Greeks] are marking time until the drop dead moment has arrived, and then [they believe] we should blink. I am worried that they have still not understood [when] the real drop dead moment is.”
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