Muscat: absence of concrete proposals by Greece creates trust problem

Muscat: Last chance saloon for Greece

Malta’s finance minister Edward Scicluna has described the situation inside the Eurogroup as a 50-50 situation, with a realistic possibility that Greece now exits the eurozone.

Scicluna said that the possibility of Greece exiting the eurozone should now be studied so that any such exit be carried out with the best intentions possible, “and not to be used as a stick to beat each other with.”

Scicluna however said it would be hard to renegotiate Greece’s debt “at a time when there was no trust”, saying that even other non-eurogroup EU member states had grown “tired and suspicious of Greece’s intentions.”

“We need good will and it will take time to build it,” Scicluna said, as he prepared to meet Yanis Varoufakis’s successor, Euclid Tsakalotos.

Scicluna later said Tsakalotos was a “breath of fresh air”, showing “a positive” attitude in his briefing.

The absence of a concrete proposal by #Greece government doesn't help this evening's #Eurozone leaders' meeting -JM

— Joseph Muscat (@JosephMuscat_JM) July 7, 2015

But no new proposals came from Greece, with finance ministers left with nothing new from Greece as to what it is doing to earn a medium-term bailout package from the European Stability Mechanism.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat in a tweet said the absence of a concrete proposal by Greece did not help this evening’s summit of eurozone leaders. “It’s clear that the Greek government has yet again come here empty-handed, telling us that the proposal will come tomorrow.”

“I don’t think that this is a wise move, and tonight we are starting on the wrong foot,” Muscat told reporters before a meeting of euro leaders in Brussels.“I really expected the Greeks to come with a proposal tonight that would reflect the urgency of the situation... The fact that we don’t have such a proposal reflects badly and we are starting on a bad footing... It’s looking likely that it is a waste of time.”