Eurozone Leaders Reconvene for Compromise Proposal as Summit Lasts Overnight

Journalists wait for the end of Eurozone leader summit on the Greek crisis, at the European Council headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, 12 July 2015. Photo: EPA

Eurozone leaders are to reconvene early on Monday morning to discuss a compromise proposal on a third bailout for Greece as the emergency summit, which started on Sunday, lasted overnight.

The summit was suspended for more than four hours during which Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and European Council President Donald Tusk discussed the compromise proposal.

Greece is opposed to two of the proposed measures, which foresee the involvement of the IMF in the post-2016 package and the transfer of up to EUR 50 B of Greek state assets into an independent and external fund for eventual privatisation.

Earlier on Sunday, it was decided that the Greek Parliament should adopt emergency legislation by Wednesday, which would restore the trust and convince eurozone partners to grant a third bailout programme estimated at up to EUR 86 B.

At the meeting of the Eurogroup on Sunday, eurozone finance ministers decided that Greece should enact deeper tax and pension reforms, than the ones which had been proposed by Athens on Thursday.

The document also included the German proposal for a temporary five-year exit of Greece from the eurozone in case Athens failed to accept the stricter conditions.

However some senior EU officials dismissed temporary Grexit as illegal and such option would be dropped from the summit statement in case Greece agreed to other unfavourable measures.

Tsipras insisted on a stronger commitment from creditors to restructure Greek debt in order to make in more sustainable in the medium-term, daily Kathimerini reports.

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