Greece

Greek premier Alexis Tsipras dispatched a team of his top advisers to Brussels on Saturday to thrash out a deal to avert a default by Greece that European officials now say could be imminent.

 An assessment of the events that led up to the failed talks between the troika and the previous government, as well as SYRIZA?s rise to power

By Eleni Varvitsioti & Tasos Telloglou

Greece does not believe its European partners will ultimately let the country leave the eurozone, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said on Saturday, as the country races to agree a cash-for-reforms deal with its creditors.

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy spoke before a German businessman panel in Berlin and supported the idea of supporting Greece through Europe. He, however, also stated that Greek PM Alexis Tsipras is not meeting expectations.

“We are back to zero”, he added, supporting former Greek PM Antonis Samaras who “gave a boost to Greek growth and began reforms”.

Talks between Greece and its lenders are due to resume in Brussels on Saturday after a clutch of government officials flew back to the Belgian capital on Friday in an attempt to salvage hopes of an agreement to secure another 7.2 billion euros in bailout funds.

By Prokopis Hatzinikolaou

Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is planning to have all bank accounts cross-checked against incomes declared to tax authorities in a bid to combat tax evasion and in hopes of having an immediate impact on state coffers.

Up to 70,000 PASOK supporters are expect to vote Sunday in the party?s leadership race, which is being contested by three candidates.

Local authorities insisted on Friday that they would not give in to the Interior Minister Nikos Voutsis?s demands for municipalities and regional authorities to transfer their cash reserves to the Bank of Greece, where they could be used for short-term borrowing by the government.

Antonis Kantas, the former deputy head of procurements at the Defense Ministry between 1996 and 2002 and one of the chief suspects in an arms-for-contracts scandal, was released from pretrial custody on Friday after the expiration of the maximum 18-month holding period.

A day of reckoning for the just over four-month Greek government appears near, with the latest sign coming on Friday with the urgent dispatch to Brussels on Saturday morning of Greek negotiators — a day after negotiations with creditors appeared momentarily moribund.