BRUSSELS—Greece’s prime minister entered a showdown with creditors on Wednesday in Brussels, where each side would present proposals in the hope of reaching a deal to unlock bailout loans and save the country from financial disaster.
Some officials dampened expectations of a breakthrough Wednesday, even though Greece is running out of cash and faces debt repayments as soon as Friday.
But French President François Hollande said the talks were at least heading in the right direction: “We are some days, not to say some hours away from a possible agreement.”
Greece has been negotiating for four months with its creditors over what budget reforms it should make to get the 7.2 billion euros ($8.1 billion) in loans that are left over in its bailout fund. Wednesday’s meetings are part of a string of high-level diplomatic efforts to bring the negotiations to a successful end.
Sticking Points
Ahead of his meeting with Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker, Greek leader Alexis Tsipras stressed the need for compromise.
“Today more than ever it is necessary for the (creditor) institutions and mainly for the political leadership of Europe to sign up to realism,” Tsipras said.
Tsipras spoke by teleconference with Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel ahead of his meeting with Juncker, a Greek government official said.
The three agreed on the need for Greece to have lower primary surpluses—the budget balance without taking into account debt servicing—“and for a solution to be found quickly,” the official said, on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
Lower primary surpluses than those initially demanded under Greece’s five-year bailout have been one of Athens’s main requests, although it appears to have been the easiest to overcome in the negotiations.
