ELA to Greek banks maintained, but conditions are tougher

Creditors had wanted more spending cuts in exchange for extending the country’s multibillion euro bailout deal until November.

As for his European negotiating colleagues, he said of them: “I shall wear the creditors’ loathing with pride”.

The gravy train may have come to a halt, but Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras is desperately attempting to refuel it.

“The situation is becoming financially worse, not just more politically hard”, our correspondent said.

Without a firm political commitment from the euro area for a quick agreement with Greece, it’s “highly improbable” that the ECB will agree to any increase in ELA, predicted Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a senior research fellow at the Peterson Institute for global Economics in Washington, D.C. “Without such assistance, Greek banks will remain closed and slide ever closer to bankruptcy”, he noted on Monday.

Right now, both Greece and the eurozone are making last ditch efforts for an urgently needed bailout deal, by Tuesday.

“This is not a mandate of rupture with Europe, but a mandate that bolsters our negotiating strength to achieve a viable deal”, he said.

He raised the idea of interim financing with Ms. Merkel, French President François Hollande and Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the European Union’s executive Commission, ahead of the summit, the Greek official said, adding that it would be discussed further during the summit itself.

No country has ever left the 19-member eurozone.

However, some of Europe’s top politicians have already sent out ominous-sounding messages.

Greece votes “no”: Now what?

With his brash style and fondness for frequent media appearances, Varoufakis had visibly annoyed numerous eurozone’s finance ministers during Greece’s debt negotiations. He suggested Britain could fly planeloads of euro notes to Greece to assist stranded tourists. Or so I am told, by well-placed sources.

Clearly, the concern is that, given the significant sovereign-bank loop in Greece, the quality of collateral provided by the Greek banks is not particularly good and would not be worth much if the banks failed to repay the liquidity and the collateral had to be called upon. “We can not be immune from these developments”. It kept the cap on these loans at a total of €89bn.

A daily limit of 60 euros on cash withdrawals from ATMs for Greek bank card holders will remain in place, the Greek banking association said Monday.

Noyer said it was “impossible” to re-open Greek banks while confidence was so low, saying there would be an “immediate run” on tellers.