As threats of a debt default, potential ‘Greek exit,’ and stock market crash loom, both sides appear to be digging in their heels after negotiations between Greece and European lenders collapsed on Sunday.
Greece’s leftist leader, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, slammed his creditors for their “insistence” on austerity, which he described as a “pillaging” of Greece’s imperiled economy.
“One can only suspect political motives behind the institutions’ insistence that new cuts be made to pensions despite five years of pillaging,” Tsipras said in a statement to the Ton Syntakton newspaper. He said that the Greek government “will await patiently until the institutions adhere to realism.”
Then, addressing his critics as well as the anti-austerity mandate that brought the populist Syriza party to power in January, Tsipras continued:
Meanwhile, Reuters reports, the European Commission said it would only resume mediation efforts if Greece put forward new proposals for more cuts.
The “last ditch” talks fell apart in Brussels on Sunday after EU officials dismissed the Greek government’s latest reform package as “incomplete.”
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