German media noted that the atmosphere in the emergency Eurogroup meeting on February 11 was hostile but also modest, while most international news agencies state that there is hope that Europe and Greece will come to an agreement in the end. Yanis Varoufakis presented his positions in a vague manner and several German news agencies commented on the fact that he presented his arguments with no written evidence. Furthermore, Austrian Finance Minister Hans Jörg Schelling, as well as his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble stressed that the electoral result does not change the fact the bailout out program needs to be respected and completed. The British newspaper The Guardian wrote that the Greece-Eurogroup debate has come to a stalemate. “Alexis Tsipras, the new Greek prime minister, seems to have ordered his finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, to stand firm against the pressure to make any concessions,” the newspaper noted. “The stalemate could see Greece running out of cash next month, unilaterally defaulting on the bailout program with the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund, and being forced to leave the single currency.” Furthermore, Bloomberg reports that Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis presented his European counterparts with “four principles of a new financing deal.” Meanwhile, according to two Eurozone officials that preferred to remain anonymous, Varoufakis did not offer any details regarding Greece’s goals. New York Times reported that after a five-hour talk Eurozone and Greece failed to “settle their differences.” Moreover, the article noted that in the beginning the ministers had been planning on releasing a joint statement by the end of the meeting. “But that plan had to be dropped at the end of the meeting after ministers could not agree on additional language, demanded by Greece, on the gravity of social conditions in the country.” Finally, according to Wall Street Journal Greece and EU are planning on continuing their talks in order to come to a decision. “Eurozone finance ministers struggled to find a clear line on how to deal with Greece’s financial issues early Thursday in light of what they said were mixed messages from the new government in Athens,” noted the article.
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