Agreement with partners and creditors must be reached by end of June

The government may have lost valuable time, but not everything is lost, claim sources from the European Commission, who predict that an agreement with the institutions will be reached. The same sources revealed that the government’s controversial legislative act was a European request and is indicative of its commitment to the negotiation.

According to the EC source, while there has been progress in talks, there is a still is a significant distance on critical matters. Nevertheless, there are two deadlines that the Greek side has, in order to provide a comprehensive and costed list of reform proposals – Thursday’s Eurogroup in Latvia and a potentially emergency Eurogroup for next week. Should a preliminary agreement be reached, then there is a chance the Euro Working Group may examine it in time for a Eurogroup by the 30^th of April, however this is rather difficult and unlikely.

As such, the 30^th of June is considered the most important deadline, as this is the date when the Greek program is set to end. The Eurogroup scheduled for the 11^th of May, although not initially planned to discuss the Greek affair, may be a new deadline. The source which spoke to To Vima though noted that the use of deadlines in talks may lead to brinkmanship and unnecessary excitement.

Contrary to suggestions in the press, the source noted that the negotiations are being carried out in the best possible way and although the source was hesitant to comment on the possibility of early elections, estimated that it was an unlikely scenario. The source asserted that there was no “ideological clash” with Greece.