Greece, Creditors Fail To Reach Early Deal

For a couple of hours on Tuesday, it appeared as though Greece had managed to sneak a debt deal proposal by the troika that, while hitting some of the mandated fiscal targets, did not include the pension cuts and VAT concessions that had previously constituted creditors’ “red lines.”
Then, on Tuesday evening, the IMF apparently decided to read the terms of the “deal” and Christine Lagarde did not like what she saw.
A few hours later, we were back to square one and Greek PM Alexis Tsipras was calling the IMF’s stance “weird” although in reality, the Fund was simply reiterating what it’s been saying since May, when Lagarde lost patience with the situation following Athens’ move to make a €750 million payment out of its SDR reserves.
Following meetings with EU officials and then with Lagarde and ECB chief Mario Draghi on Wednesday evening, Tsipras is back at it on Thursday, in a frantic attempt to win over EU finance chiefs (who are collectively losing their will to keep Greece in the currency bloc) and the IMF as t

Continue Reading