Finance Minister of Greece Yanis Varoufakis shared his plans for solving the debt problem during a meeting of the eurozone finance ministers. The ministers gathered at the emergency session, but no vital decisions were made during it. The negotiations were deadlocked and ended ahead of schedule after mutual exchange of opinions. It is noteworthy that earlier Greece had announced that it can seek support of the United States, Russia or China if it fails to reach an agreement on debt restructuring with the EU. The EU officials have their own opinion on this issue. For example, Germany rejected Greece’s request for a bailout extension at once, thus changing the existing terms, the Finance Ministry spokesperson informed. “The letter from Athens is not a proposal that leads to a substantial solution,” Martin Jaeger said. “The letter does not meet the criteria agreed by the Eurogroup.” Such announcement means that there is no consensus. However, despite disagreements, Greece already refused the EU’s offer to extend the bailout program. So if the Greek request is fully declined, the country will be left without any external financial support for the first time since 2010 and it may face shortage of means for debts servicing. The Greek representatives reassured the public saying that Athens has an emergency plan in case all the offers are rejected. Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem added, “There is time and ample room to agree on the terms of an extension. When I listen to my Greek colleagues talking about a bridging loan and so on – that’s a different word for an extension.” The Greek government debt totals more than €320 billion that is about 174% of the country’s GDP.
