Friday, March 20, 2015

Blog #5 EU leaders in Brussels demand Greece produce economic blueprint quickly


On Friday morning Athens was supposed to show a list of economic reforms in order to persuade the European creditors that they “deserve” more funds. The discussion whether or not Greece will return to the Drachma was discussed again on Thursday.
Alexis Tsipras had a three-hour discussion that ended after 2am with Angela Merkel. She was very clear that there would be no help provided unless she saw that Tsipras was willing to give her a plan that he has to reform the Greek economy. Also, his plan needs to be supported by the rest of the governments in the Eurozone.
After Tsipras agreed to deal with issues of their own and issues in Libya and Ukraine he got a meeting with Merkel, Draghi, Holland, Tusk and Dijsselbloem. There was a long conversation where Tsipras was trying to convince them why Greece deserves the money. There was not a breakthrough even though time is not on Greece’s side. At any moment Greece can go bankrupt.
There have been multiple meetings this week in Europe and it seems that Greece is not getting much support. Tsipras is trying to avoid the austerity that has been going on the last few years and Europe needs evidence that there will be a chance in order to give them more money.
                        There has been a lot of tension and no one knows what could happen tomorrow! Greece needs to understand that they cannot expect Europe just to forget the money Greece owes. There has to be a change on their side in order for Europe to be willing to give more. On the other hand by refusing to help Greece, Europe has to think what this might do to everyone else. If Greece returns to the Drachmas and go bankrupt will Europe be OK and not get affected at all? 

Eugenia Marantos
20/03/2015
10:40pm

No comments: