Greece, creditors in new bid for loan deal as deadline looms

Greece and its international creditors remained at loggerheads Thursday over reform measures that Athens must introduce to unlock billions of euros in loans and prevent a likely bankruptcy of the country.

 

With talks in Brussels at an impasse, leaders from the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission raised the stakes by putting forward their joint position on the kind of reforms they would accept to offer Greece a financial lifeline.

 

But Greece was still not on board, raising fresh doubts about whether it is possible to clinch a deal before Tuesday, when the country has to make a debt repayment it cannot afford.

 

“We don’t have an agreement on the Greeks from that,” said Jeroen Dijsselbloem, as he arrived to chair the second emergency meeting of the 19-nation eurozone finance ministers this week. “We will have to hear … from the Greek side what their ideas are, what they could agree to, what they could not agree to.”

 

An EU official, who declined to be named with the negotiations still in flux, said that the creditor offer “can form the basis of an agreement.”

 

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