Greece's Syriza given 72 hours to keep country in the Eurozone
Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras was given 72 hours, or until Wednesday, to push new reform measures through his country's parliament, in order to show his European counterparts the country can be trusted.
Those new measures, until which they are passed the European Union refuses to start detailed talks on a new bailout, valued at at least €74bn, are considered key to rebuilding the trust lost over the past few weeks.
“The situation is extremely difficult if you consider the economic situation in Greece and the worsening in the last few months, but what has been lost also in terms of trust and reliability,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.
The conditions were agreed upon by Eurozone finance ministers before Sunday's summit of EU heads of state, to discuss how to handle Grexit, was cancelled.
“Greece is being given exactly two choices,” Finland's finance minister Alexander Stubb said. “It’s a rather black and white choice.”
The country faces a critical deadline of 20 July when €3.5bn in debt owed to the European Central bank fall due.
A failure to make the payment could force the ECB to suspend aid to Greek lenders under its Emergenecy Liquidty Assistance credit facility.
Some euro area finance ministers on Sunday proposed that Greece funnel €50bn of state assets into a corporation to be used as collateral for further aid.
Stubb's remarks were echoed by Ireland's Enda Kenny, who said: “I’d like to see them demonstrating starting tomorrow in their parliament they’re serious about changes."
On a possibly hopeful note, early on Saturday Greek lawmakers approved legislation to raise the country's rate of value added tax and cuts to pensions.