Yanis Varoufakis

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday she saw no substantial differences in the positions of major EU powers on Greece, which is campaigning to renegotiate the terms of its bailout programme.

?I don't think that the positions of the member states of the eurozone with regard to Greece differ, at least in terms of substance,? Merkel said.

His hectic schedule of meetings and visits to Paris, London, Rome, Frankfurt and Berlin may have kept the prolific social media-using Greek FinMin off the TL for a few days, however, on Wednesday afternoon Yanis Varoufakis squeezed in a tweet.

Greece's finance minister met a senior International Monetary Fund official in Paris over the weekend, the new Greek government said on Wednesday, its first meeting with one of the country's major creditors since taking power last month.

By John O'Donnell & Jan Strupczewski

Greece's new leftist government appealed to the European Central Bank on Wednesday to keep its banks afloat and vowed to respect European Union rules as it seeks a negotiated solution with euro zone partners to reduce its debt burden.

The probability of Greece leaving the eurozone has jumped from virtually nothing to at least 20 percent since Syriza's Jan. 25 election victory, the head of the German ZEW think tank told Reuters.

Conservative New Democracy has accused Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis of ?defaming? the country.

?Yesterday in Rome, Mr Tsipras called Greece a corrupt country and today Mr Varoufakis called it a bankrupt [country],? ND spokesman Costas Karagounis said Wednesday.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble is sticking to his hard line on Greece, telling a German newspaper the onus was on the government in Athens to fulfil the conditions of its bailout program before further aid would be paid out.

If Greece wants support it will have to stay within a bailout program, according to Wolfgang Schaeuble’s spokesman, Martin Jager.

Berlin again raised the “political thermomter” on the continent shortly before Greek FinMin Yanis Varoufakis was to meet with his German counterpart.

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said Athens needs up to six weeks to draft an economic recovery plan, as it lobbies its European allies to win backing for debt relief proposals.
      

Greece's new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said during a visit to Brussels on Wednesday that he believed it was possible to find a solution to the debt standoff between Athens and the EU.