Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Tuesday ruled out any debt relief offer similar to the one tabled by creditors at a May Eurogroup meeting, making the statement before his Cabinet in a high-profile appearance that comes two days before yet another crucial Eurogroup session on Thursday.
The Cabinet meeting was urgently called a day earlier, while Tsipras’ statements to his ministers were even carried on state television.
If no satisfactory offer emerges, Tsipras said he will demand the issue be brought before a summit meeting on June 20, “so everyone can assume their responsibilities”.
The Greek PM outlined a compromise that is similar to a proposal circulated by the new French government this week, namely, pegging Greek debt relief with the country’s annual GDP growth.
Athens is keen to get the European Central Bank, among others, to change its “calculus” and determine that the Greek debt is sustainable.
“This is a reasonable and fair proposal that respects the concerns of all sides and creates the conditions for a permanent exit from the crisis,” he said, adding that negotiations at Thursday’s Eurogroup are the most crucial since the advent of the crisis.
Moreover, he repeated his government’s leitmotif of fulfilling all of creditors’ demands, with the onus now on the latter to fulfill their obligations to Athens, i.e. medium-term debt relief – a position that in the recent period has attracted certain high-level supporters in Europe.
Faced with collapsing popularity, personally and by his coalition government, Tsipras is wagering much of his remaining political “capital” in achieving some sort of debt relief in order to deflect widespread popular dissatisfaction over repeated austerity measures his government has implemented and to jump-start the Greek economy.
