Brussels meeting fails to reach deal on Greece

A key meeting on Greece between euro zone finance ministers broke up without a deal yesterday as they sought yet more talks with Athens in anticipation of a further bid to reach agreement.

The emergency meeting in Brussels, the ministers’ second in five days, broke up after less than two hours.

Although euro zone leaders still descended on the Belgian capital last night for an emergency summit on Greece, the country’s creditors are now working towards an agreement at a scheduled summit of all EU leaders which begins on Thursday and concludes on Friday.

"We will work very hard the next couple of days – the institutions will work very hard with Greek authorities – with a view of reaching such an agreement later this week," said Dutch minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, chairman of the talks.

Greece submitted a revised funding proposal to its creditors on Sunday night, but Mr Dijsselbloem said the document came too late for detailed consideration.

As a result, there was little anticipation of a breakthrough as ministers gathered in Brussels.

"There are very low expectations on an agreement today. It's the start of a process with the eurogroup going on to the heads' meeting. It's the function of the eurogroup to prepare the meeting for the heads," said Minister for Finance Michael Noonan ahead of the talks.

‘Minor changes’

There had been mixed signals earlier yesterday when it emerged that Greek proposals contained in a second delivery of documents from Athens contained what Mr Dijsselbloem described as “minor changes” from the first submission.

Mr Noonan said: “There was such confusion during the night with alternative versions of the Greek proposal coming in that there hasn’t been adequate preparation and it will be very difficult for the eurogroup to have prepared for the meetings.”

He added that ministers were still not quite clear about what was in the proposals. “We understand that the Greek authorities have made some movement and that’s to be welcomed but it’s not clear that the movement is sufficient.”

Detailed scrutiny

The eurogroup asked officials to carry out detailed scrutiny of the new Greek proposal and engage with Greek officials in the next two days.

“The work can start immediately as far as we are concerned,” Mr Dijsselbloem told reporters. “If necessary – and if all goes well, it will be necessary – the eurogroup will have another meeting later this week to hear from the final outcome of the talks with the Greek authorities.”

Economics commissioner Pierre Moscovici, who earlier said he was "convinced" euro zone leaders would find a way out of the Greek crisis, said the Greek proposals had come rather late in the day.

“We looked at this very quickly. It’s a good basis for work, work further to be done in order to clarify, specify and check the overall consistency,” he told a press conference.

“Regarding what the eurogroup has to do: well, it has given a mandate with the institutions to get together with the Greek authorities to get to work straight away and work on this with a view to reaching an agreement on a political basis.”

Mr Dijsselbloem said the first general opinion of "the institutions" – as the EU Commission, the IMF and the European Central Bank are known in the Greek talks – was that the new Greek plan was broad and comprehensive. But it was still necessary to look at specifics.