Germany says result of finmins’ Greece meeting ‘completely open’

According to the BBC, Greece’s parliament overnight backed Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s new package.

“We are discussing a proposal that is very similar to the proposal that was rejected massively less than a week ago”, said Wiebes, who represents the Netherlands because the country’s finance minister, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, is president of the eurogroup.

Euro zone sources say these pots of money could include 1.9 billion euros in 2014 profits returned to member governments from the ECB’s holdings of Greek bonds, a further 1.5 billion euros in 2015 profits from the same source which member states have not yet transferred to an ESM account, and possible short-term bilateral loans from “friends of Greece”. Traditionally, eurozone ministers agree by mutual consensus. A Sunday summit of European Union leaders could be its last chance to prevent the collapse of the banking sector and an inevitable exit from the euro currency.

Schaeuble was clear in who he blamed for current crisis. The “hopeful” situation regarding Greece at the end of previous year has been “destroyed by the last months”, he said.

French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said he would continue to play the mediating role at the meeting of the eurozone’s 19 finance ministers, in line with recent efforts by the country.

But austerity-minded Germany holds the keys to the outcome, and a EU leader and two other sources gave no more than a 50-50 chance that a make-or-break European summit Sunday would approve a deal. The task facing the new Greek finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, is to convince his skeptical counterparts that Greece deserves another bailout, which would be its third in five years. “At what tempo are you going to do it”. Visibly rattled, Panagiotis Lafazanis, the energy minister who leads Syriza’s radical Left Platform faction and has railed against further austerity, refused to answer reporters’ questions. Relations between Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s finance minister until last week, and many of his peers in the eurozone were particularly frosty.

If there is no deal, European Central Bank policymakers have said they will discuss a range of emergency measures to safeguard the euro zone. France has said its parliament will also meet to give political approval to a deal, although it is not legally required to do so.

Interior Minister Nikos Voutsis appeared more upbeat, saying he was “optimistic” that Greece would secure “a very good agreement”.

Tsipras won the backing of 251 out of 300 deputies in the Greek parliament for his reform plans, even though they are similar to the ones that Greeks rejected in the referendum.

Finance ministers from the 19-country eurozone were arriving in Brussels for a crucial meeting that could determine whether Greece can retain its place in the euro.

“If we want a lasting agreement, the Greeks must provide responses on when they will decide…and at what pace they will do it”, he said, suggesting the worldwide creditors would seek a precise timetable for carrying out reforms.

-By Raf Casert in Brussels.