“There is no agreement with Athens, time is running out” – The Messenger

On Greece “must do more, there is a sense of urgency, the Greeks know that time is running out, but in April still is not finished ‘: so the president of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem.
“The progress is not sufficient, the negotiations must continue, the best option is to conclude the program, it is important that Greece accelerate and begin to implement the reforms,” ​​confirms Vice President Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis entering the Eurogroup. The Commissioner for Economic Affairs Pierre Moscovici emphasizes the urgency to move forward. “The message today is that we must accelerate the progress going too slow, there is a sense of urgency,” he says. And the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble announced: discussions on Greece “are not advanced enough, today we will hear a report on the state of things, and we will say that the time has a limit.”

And some colleagues Eurogroup would be hard with the Minister of Finance greek Yanis Varoufakis by some of his colleagues to the Eurogroup of Riga, for the way is conducting negotiations with international creditors.

“A wasters, an amateur,” they said second Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the meeting.

“The emergency liquidity (Ela) will be given until banks (Greek ed) will be solvent and there will be adequate collateral, but given the current fragility of the situation, the ECB may have to go back and review the haircut “on the side, said ECB President Mario Draghi.

“No comment” Yanis Varoufakis status liquidity treasure Greek. When asked to provide information on the actual situation of the public coffers Economy Minister preferred not to respond in detail merely to remember that Greece at this time has honored its payment commitments, “drawing on the reserves.”

cuts to pensions, the greek government does not consider useful to stabilize the country, moratorium on the confiscation of the first houses, that the Government would create new poor, primary surplus: these are “differences for which there is no agreement» with the EU, “but we must focus on how to achieve it because there is no alternative”: thus Varoufakis.

“Today we expressed the determination to an agreement quickly, and expressed the ‘ anxious about the amount of time that you are using to bring together our views, “said Varoufakis. Although, he said, there has been in recent weeks, “a clear indication that the process goes towards convergence”, today we also discussed “the points on which there is common ground.” As “the demand by some of the institutions of pension cuts, something to which the government greek opposes because it considers them necessary for financial stabilization.” Then there is the question of the “moratorium on the confiscation of the first houses, where our vision is this: in poor areas, seize the first house would create homelessness,” and also “reduce the capitalization of banks,” because with the recession housing market “prices go to the ground” and the banks that use the buildings as collateral find themselves with no real value. Finally, the question of the primary surplus. These are “the reasons for which there is no agreement,” he said.

Meanwhile sharp rise in the Greek Stock Exchange in the early stages of the session. The index Ase Athens advances of 3.22%, and there is an ongoing rally in banks, after the minimum of two and a half years marked by the list in weeks and while on the Eurogroup to Riga. Piraeus bank advances of 13.36%, Attica 9.3%, Eurobank Ergasias salt of 9.09%.

Tens of thousands of Greek families with financial problems will have a breath of fresh air: the Bank of Piraeus, in fact, in the wake of government initiatives Tsipras against the “humanitarian crisis”, intends to cancel the debts of indigent up to 20,000 euro from consumer loans and credit cards and mortgages freeze devaluing interests. He reports the online edition of the newspaper To Vima. According to the announcement of Piraeus Bank, all customers of the bank can benefit from this initiative provided they meet the requirements in the bill recently approved by Parliament to deal with the humanitarian crisis in the country. In this case, the bank will cancel 100% of debts of up to € 20,000 (both from consumer loans that credit card debt), will block the home loans and will delete the related interest payable. Banking sources have reported that this decision will cost tens of millions of euro, but basically paves the way for other Greek banks for you to adopt similar initiatives. The same sources have pointed out that this is the first case of cancellation of a debt of mass under the pressure of the humanitarian crisis in Greece. The institute also said that the intervention reflects its commitment to adapt to the needs of the economy and Greek society in a changing environment.