Greek prime minister warns Syriza party about early elections

“This would have created a parallel banking system, which would have given us some breathing space, while the banks would have been shut due to the ECB’s aggressive policy”, Varoufakis was quoted as saying.

In other words, the new dividing line is “euro vs. drachma”.

The call was recorded on July 16 but only released on Monday.

The discovery that Varoufakis was focusing on An Idea N over Greece’s upcoming was one of many in an extensive-running conversation around the Greek situation. Greece can not return to worldwide financing markets with this level of debt, he said.

The main conservative opposition, New Democracy, accused Varoufakis of “dark methods that threaten democracy” and summoned Tsipras to brief parliament.

Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has told rebels in his Syriza party he will have to call early elections if they continue to oppose a bailout deal.

The discussions over several issues such as pensions and labor market reforms would set the stage for high-level talks between Greek ministers and senior EU and worldwide Monetary Fund officials later this week.

On Wednesday, the worldwide Monetary Fund’s chief Christine Lagarde reiterated her view that any new plan for Greece requires significant restructuring of the country’s debts by the European Commission and the ECB, a view that now has been generally accepted by the creditors.

But the reforms came at a price for Tsipras.

But he added: “If I don’t have the parliamentary majority I will be forced to go to elections”.

The laws were passed with solid backing from pro-European opposition parties, but left Tsipras without an effective parliamentary majority.

But Tsipras said he would not implement anything beyond what was agreed in Brussels earlier this month.

Feld also said the council viewed a third bailout for Greece as the “right step” as long as Athens implemented reforms. The finance ministry official said that no such prior actions are required, while EU Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva told reporters in Brussels that “more reforms are expected as part of the statement from the Greek authorities, to allow for a swift disbursement”. “If no deal is reached in time for the 20 August deadline, another short-term solution will have to be found, likely in the form of yet another bridge loan worth around”.

Tsipras was elected on a staunchly anti-austerity platform that resonated with Greeks hard-hit by five years of tough income cuts and tax hikes demanded by worldwide creditors in return for the rescue loans that kept the country afloat. And as the economy that was Greek is just about 25-percent smaller than it had been, the debt load in the nation has risen up to around 170 percent of the yearly GDP in Greece.

He underlined that if he had followed his heart and left the table of negotiations in the eurozone summit on July 13 and there was no deal, Greek banks would collapse within 48 hours and deposits would be wiped out.

Meanwhile the Frankfurt-based ECB confirmed its lifeline to Greece would remain unchanged, a week after the bank extended its emergency assistance for Greece’s struggling banks by 900 million euros to 90.4 billion euros ($99.8 million), Bloomberg News reported.