State minister hopes for deal at Eurogroup meeting on Thursday 7.58am BST Mike van Dulken and Augustin Eden at Accendo Markets are calling the FTSE 100 index 25 points lower at at 6820, as markets react to the IMF walkout.Creditor rhetoric become notably aggressive towards Greek PM Tsipras in terms of continued backtracking on ‘progress’ (EU says ‘gambling’ must stop; talk of ‘time-wasting, incompetence and deviousness’) as clock ticks towards key debt payments, the coffers run dry and default/Eurozone exit becomes distinct possibility. 7.52am BST Tsipras did not appear too downcast when he returned to Athens from talks in Brussels last night, and headed straight to the launch party of public broadcaster ERT. There were tears (not from Tsipras as far as we know) when the state radio and television organisation aired its first broadcast in two years, after it was shut down under the government’s austerity drive. It has rehired most of the staff fired.Tsipras had called ERT’s closure “a great wound” of his country’s bailout. 7.47am BST Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the Greek bailout talks and other events across the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business.Despite the IMF walkout, the Greek state minister hopes Greece will clinch a deal with its international lenders at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers next Thursday. I hope it [a deal] will come very soon, on June 18, when the Eurogroup takes place.The announcement that IMF officials were walking away from the negotiations with Greece was as sudden as it was unexpected, as was the tone of the officials, who came across as extremely downbeat. In short the verdict was scathing, with officials citing that the gaps between the relative negotiating positions hadn’t been bridged at all.The logjam appears to revolve around pension and labour market reform which Greece remains unwilling to compromise on, and when looking at the demonstrations that took place back in Athens yesterday it’s not hard to see why. Even if Greece does compromise on the issues the IMF wants change on, there is no guarantee that they would be able to implement them and therein lies the rub.It would appear that each side thinks the other is bluffing with Greek officials banking that US pressure could well see the EU compromise, or that Angela Merkel won’t want to go down as the German leader who oversaw the beginnings of the break-up of the single currency. Continue reading...
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