Germany’s Gabriel – Greece needs to change position to stay in euro

It is urgent to have these proposals so we can find a way out of this situation, ‘ said the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, after talks with her counterpart, the French president, François Hollande.

Greece’s Syriza-led government, which was elected in January on an anti-austerity platform, said creditors had tried to use fear to put pressure on Greeks.

“And that is why we are now waiting for very precise proposals from the Greek prime minister, a program that will allow Greece to return to prosperity”, said Merkel, adding that eurozone countries had already shown “a lot of solidarity with Greece“.

According to the European Commission the proposal did not include any cuts in salaries and pensions.

Upon taking office, Mr Tsakalotos said Greeks declared in a referendum that they “deserve better” and “cannot accept a non-viable solution” to the country’s debt crisis.

Earlier, Greece’s outspoken Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, resigned.

The two leaders have also called a special eurozone summit for Tuesday.

Merkel is due to arrive in Paris around 6:00 pm local time (1600 GMT) for talks in which she and Hollande will try to bridge the gap between France’s more conciliatory line and the tough rhetoric heard across the political spectrum in Berlin.

The head of Germany’s savings bank association said Greece had broken with the rules of the euro zone and should leave the currency bloc.

German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, leader of Merkel’s centre-left Social Democratic junior coalition partner, said it was hard to conceive of fresh negotiations on lending more billions to Athens after Greeks voted against more austerity.

The result dealt a body blow to the vision of European integration, but elated parties campaigning against austerity and loss of national sovereignty.

Even then, the banks are expected to struggle as Greeks besiege cash machines to withdraw a maximum of €60 daily, though government officials have vociferously denied any plans to issue a parallel currency.

But they also said talks to avert it would be easier without Varoufakis, an avowed “erratic Marxist” economist who infuriated fellow euro zone finance ministers with his casual style and indignant lectures. “It would be the beginning of the end of the single currency”, he said.

But it noted that the key financial support can only be provided against sufficient collateral.

The European Central Bank on Monday chose to maintain the emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) at the same level set on June 26, despite a request for an increase from the Bank of Greece.

But Germany and France have made it clear so far that the ball was in Greece’s court and various Eurozone leaders seem more and more convinced that Greece needs to dumped.

Conservative ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, looking to run again as president in 2017, has noisily attacked Hollande’s handling of the saga and declared that Athens has de facto suspended its membership of the euro zone.

Greece’s last bailout expired on Tuesday and Greece missed a €1.6bn payment to the International Monetary Fund.

French economist Thomas Piketty, who became renowned a year ago for his scathing critique of global inequality, has stirred up another debate – this time on the Greek crisis.

This story will develop as the meeting of ministers gets underway. “Though I have to say that it is not a question of weeks any more, but a question of a few days”.

The prime minister praised Greece as a Western, peace-seeking democracy, adding that Israel was “committed to help in any way possible to ensure your success”. They correctly recognized that, after large crises that created huge debt loads, at some point people need to look toward the future.

The Israeli economy does not have heavy exposure to the Greek market.