Rolling coverage as Athens and the eurozone battle to break the deadlock over its loan programme, after Monday night’s talks collapsedIntroduction: Fallout after talks collapseEurogroup chief: We are ready to work with GreecePhotos: EU finance ministers meeting nowAthens stock market falls 4.5% 9.19am GMT Greece’s government debt is being hammered this morning too. Prices are sliding, driving up the yield (or interest rate) on the bonds.The yield on Greece’s benchmark 10-year bond has jumped from 9.9% to 10.6% this morning. Brussels breakdown... Greek banks -7.1%. Greek 3-year yield up almost 200bps. pic.twitter.com/dNpZIJwmZ2 9.12am GMT Analysts at Commerzbank reckon there’s a 50:50 chance that this deadlock will result in Greece leaving the eurozone. More here.Risk of Greece exiting the euro was raised to 50 percent by #Commerzbank after talks with euro-area finance ministers broke down on Monday 9.08am GMT Today’s 4.5% drop in Greek stock prices sounds severe, but it’s largely in line with recent volatility: 8.49am GMT Athens market falling but no panic. Yet. 8.40am GMT The Athens stock market is falling sharply at the start of trading, after the collapse of last night’s talks.Bank shares are down almost 9%, as traders react to the latest deadlock.#Greece Athens stock exchange already -4.49%, banks -8.78% 8.31am GMT A slightly baffling quote from Cyprus’s finance chief:Cyprus FinMin: "Not sure which demand of Greece should Cyprus support"... Maybe this is a polite way of saying that Greece has no plan? 8.22am GMT We just received photos from inside today’s meeting of European finance ministers in Brussels.They show that, despite last night’s clashes, Jeroen Dijsselbloem and Yanis Varoufakis shared a handshake and a conversation before the start of the meeting: 8.17am GMT Ed Conway of Sky News reports that Greek fatigue is growing in Brussels:One finance minister told me: “Fatigue is setting in. Everyone is tired of having devoted so much of their time to Greece for so many years” 8.15am GMT Jeroen Dijsselbloem has arrived at today’s EU finance meeting, and pledged that eurozone minister are “ready to work” with Greece.“I hope they (Greece) will ask for an extension to the programme, and once they do that we can allow flexibility, they can put in their political priorities.” “Of course we will see whether their programme remains on track. But that is the way forward. It’s really up to the Greeks. We cannot make them or ask them. It really is up to them. We stand ready to work with them, also the next couple of days.” 8.11am GMT Luxembourg’s finance minister Pierre Gramegna, argues that both sides have to make concessions to break last night’s stalemate.Speaking before today’s ECOFIN meeting of finance ministers, Gramegna said:“We can’t remain in a blockade so everyone has to move a bit, water-down demands so we can find a compromise.” “There are flexibilities in the programme, we have to make use of them. When the Greeks are against the programme and don’t want to work in this framework it will be tough.” 8.06am GMT Austria’s finance minster has predicted that Greece will not be forced out of the eurozone.Hans Jörg Schelling told the Deutschlandfunk radio station that he was “ruling out” the scenario where Greece goes bankrupt and leaves the euro zone.“A ‘Grexit’ is in noone’s interests - neither the euro group’s nor Greece’s”. 7.56am GMT Good morning.Exclusive Pierre #Moscovici draft statement withdrawn from #Europgroup pic.twitter.com/iSC4k3U2igIn terms of the next step now, another meeting could be held as early as Friday if Greece submits a request to extend the current programme. It seems all other options are now off the table for Greece and this will certainly put traders on high alert of an escalation of the situation. A consolation is the fact Greece’s Prime Minister has emphasised that a solution could be found in the next couple of days. Continue reading...
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