Gaps between Greece and lenders remain as Eurogroup looms

Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is to face his eurozone peers again on Saturday for a critical summit where Greece is being pressed to decide whether to accept the latest proposal by the country?s creditors or face default and a potential exit from the eurozone.

Friday?s Eurogroup, the fifth in a week, is due to begin at 3 p.m. After a difficult week of negotiations, which appeared to lead to convergence on several issues, both sides are returning to the table of talks with tough demands.

Greece rejected on Friday a proposal by creditors for a five-month extension of its bailout accompanied by some 15 billion euros in funding, with a Greek official dismissing the sum as ?inadequate? and remarking that the government ?does not have a popular mandate, nor the moral right, to sign a new memorandum.?

The Greek delegation and representatives of the creditors, however, appeared to have drawn closer on the conditionality that would underpin the financing of a new program, offering concessions in reforms to the value-added tax and pension systems.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel indicated that the creditors had made their final offer, describing the terms as ?extremely generous.? Merkel and French President Francois Hollande talked Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras through the creditors? proposal yesterday.

But, in comments to reporters shortly before he left Brussels on Friday, Tsipras indicated that creditors were trying to blackmail Greece. ?The European Union?s founding principles were democracy, solidarity, equality and mutual respect,? he said. ?These principles were not based on blackmail and ultimatums.?

?It is not political blackmail when we repeat day after day that we are very close to this day when the game is over,»...