European debt crisis

Germany's Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said on Monday he hoped there would be a quick conclusion to talks between Greece and its creditors over Greek reform efforts.

By Jeff Black and Alessandro Speciale

Yields on sovereign debt issued by other euro-area countries could rise if an agreement on Greece?s bailout isn?t reached soon, the European Central Bank said.

Cash-strapped Greece could avoid paying back the IMF on June 5 and win more time to negotiate a funding deal without defaulting if it lumps together all IMF repayments due in June and pays them at the end of the month, officials said on Tuesday.

A senior German official said on Tuesday there was no reason to believe Greece would be in default after a 300 million euro payment to the IMF falls due on June 5.

Embattled FinMin Yanis Varoufakis took to the Internet on Monday to restate his and the leftist government’s views vis-à-vis still unconsumed negotiations with creditors, with his main point being that “austerity” is a deal breaker.
The article was published on the project-syndicate.org site:

 Restructuring of consumption taxation will not affect labor balance and lead to a reduction of imports

By Dimitris Kontogiannis

Greece will not be able to make a payment to the International Monetary Fund that falls due on June 5 without a deal with its international lenders, the government's parliamentary speaker said on Wednesday.

Greece is due to finish sending on Saturday its latest proposals to the country?s lenders in the hope that it will have a response by the beginning of next week and that talks in Brussels can resume with the aim of concluding a deal that would unlock another 7.2 billion euros in bailout funding.

The head of Germany's Bundesbank ripped into the European Central Bank on Thursday, saying emergency funding for Greek banks broke the taboo of financing governments and it was not up to central banks to decide who was or wasn't in the euro zone.

Greece wants the European Central Bank to agree for Athens to delay payment on some 27 billion euros ($30 billion) in Greek bonds that it will otherwise be unable to repay, the finance minister said Thursday.

"It's quite simple, these bonds must be pushed into the future, this is clear also to the ECB," Yanis Varoufakis told a conference.