The clock is ticking for the European Union, the Eurozone and Greece as the self-declared deadline of Sunday looms. Right after prime minister Tsipras won the Greek referendum last Sunday, he immediately started crawling through the dust to satisfy his lenders.
Indeed, according to the current proposal on the table, Tsipras has now included the majority of the proposals of its creditors, even though the referendum was specifically aimed at letting Europe know the Greeks weren’t backing the reform measures. This seems to be a political suicide strategy by Tsipras as he’s effectively obeying the European institutions and has reneged on his promises to the Greek people, even after getting an extremely strong vote of confidence in the referendum last Sunday.
In fact, Tsipras wanted to give the creditors even more than they asked for. Whereas the current corporate tax rate in Greece is 26% and the creditors demanded to see an increase to 28%, Tsipras’ new plan incorporates a 29% corporate tax rate, but the creditors said that’s ‘too high’. By meeting the majority of the creditor’s demands, Tsipras is obviously hoping to reach a last-minute deal, despite his pre-election calls that the Syriza party would teach Europe a lesson, and despite the fact this very same measures were voted down during last week’s referendum.
This won’t be seen as ‘just treason’, this could also very well be Alexis Tsipras’ ‘political suicide’, despite receiving an 80% pro-vote in the Greek parliament last night.
Despite Tsipras crawling through the dust for the creditors, those don’t seem to be particularly overwhelmed by the updated Greek proposal and the Germans even called for a ‘temporary’ Grexit. After five hours of discussion, the ‘meeting of the last straw’ has been suspended as the Greek minister of finances needs to talk to Tsipras to discuss the next steps that have to be taken.
According to our sources, the main hiccup in the negotiations seems to be an internal battle against France and Germany. The French minister of finance has stated France would be willing to reduce the debt owed by the Greeks, but as could be expected, that issue isn’t even negotiable for the German sides at the table.
Meanwhile, the Greek minister of economy has said he expects the everyday operations of the Greek banks will continue to be restricted for the next two months.
Whatever happens in the near future, the Greek suffering won’t be over anytime soon and it might be a pity Tsipras didn’t have the balls to play hardball with Greece’s creditors.
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