Tsipras: We need signs Greece is exiting debt crisis

However, the message that followed yesterday’s meeting of European officials was simple and uncompromising: July 12 will decide Greece’s fate.

(AP Photo/Petros Karadjias). Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, left, Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos, center, and the new Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos pose for the photographers during the swearing in ceremony at the Presidential…

A Greek government official, speaking in Athens on the condition of anonymity, said the Greek proposals, once they arrived in Brussels, would be a revised version of measures submitted early last week in a letter from Tsipras to creditors.

The Greek crisis came up for debate in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Wednesday.

“[With] the Greek government it is every time mañana“, said Lithuania’s president Dalia Grybauskaitė, one of the Greek government’s most tough-talking critics.

Many economists say that Greece’s debt burden, at nearly 180 per cent of annual GDP, is unsustainable for a country its size.

Meanwhile, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said authorities were prepared for all eventualities – including a scenario in which the debt-laden country leaves the euro single currency or the European Union itself. Any deal had to offer the prospects of growth, and it had to include discussion of Greek debt. “It starts in the coming hours with the aim of concluding it by the end of the week, at the latest”, he said.

As mentioned by German media, the rebellion could kill of any new deal for Greece if the 193 Social Democrat MPs join the rebels – something that seems likely as Vice-Chancellor as Social Democrat leader Sigmar Gabriel has been even more outspoken against Greece than Merkel.

Often such detailed plans have fallen by the wayside amid political bickering between Greece and its creditors.

One big sticking point in the talks is Greece’s demand that the terms of its bailout loans be made easier.

Yesterday Athens submitted a three-year bail-out plan to creditors and Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, says he will have “credible” reform plans by today.

“If someone has any illusion that it will not be so, they are naive”, he said.

“The “no” vote in Greece’s referendum on Sunday dramatically increases the risk of a slide toward a disorderly Greek exit from the eurozone”, ratings agency Fitch said.

But that victory did not appear to give him much leverage in talks with foreign creditors, who know that he needs a deal to keep his country afloat.

The final crescendo of Greece’s long-running debt crisis forced the country’s banks to close last week and prompted anxious shoppers to clean out supermarket shelves due to fears of food shortages.

European officials are split on the issue, with lead eurozone lender Germany still reluctant.

It did not, however, disclose the size of the loan Greece was seeking.

Omer Esiner, chief market analyst at Commonwealth Foreign Exchange, said the Fed minutes were less important to markets than normal because of the heightened level of concern regarding Greece and China.

– European Central Bank governors to hold a telephone conference on extension of the central bank’s cash lifeline. And suppliers are demanding that businesses pay cash up front.

These reforms are necessary anyway for Greece, whether or not Greece stays in the Eurozone.

On June 30, the last bailout program expired and Greece failed to honor a loan repayment to the worldwide Monetary Fund, cutting it off from further International Monetary Fund credit until it settles the 1.5 billion euro ($1.7 billion) amount.