Chivalry

A harsh agreement forbearing 3.5 billions’ worth of measures but will also include a restructuring of debt, is placed on the proverbial table by lenders.

The plan which will be discussed tonight between EC Pres. Jean-Claude Juncker and Greek PM Alexis Tsipras will plan for a 1.5% primary surplus target and will raise the new measures target to 3.5 billion.

A few hours before the meeting between Alexis Tsipras and Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels, European officials send clear messages that there will be no developments on the Greek matter today, but it is “almost 100% certain that tomorrow, an agreement between Greece and its lenders will be announced”.

Lenders to Greece may have been in disagreement on how much and whether they’d alleviate the Greek debt, but they seem to have settled on a deal, and the plan is almost completed, ready to be sent to Greece.

Germany’s EU Commissioner Guenter Oettinger said on Sunday morning that a deal with Greece could be achieved this week. “We will need progress at the working group level, in order that we can agree on a reform agenda, perhaps even by the end of the week which would trigger the payment of the last tranche of aid from the current aid program,” he said, speaking with German newspaper Die Welt.

Negotiations on the conclusion of a deal between government and lenders are at a fever pitch. The team of political negotiations has been meeting under PM Tsipras since 12 at noon today, in order to evaluate the latest developments and study new data arriving from the technical teams’ negotiations.

Aides to European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker went to his defence Tuesday for shirking protocol when he greeted leaders at an EU summit last week, saying he was known for his "cool style."

People from all over the former Yugoslavia gathered in the Croatian village of Kumrovec, the birthplace of the leader of socialist Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, to celebrate his birthday.

Athens believes that Greece could still clinch an agreement with its lenders but probably at the start of June, rather than by the end of this month as it had previously hoped, following the meetings Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras held on the sidelines of the European Union leaders? summit in Riga, Latvia.

European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker teased Hungarian Premier Viktor Orban over his strongman reputation Friday, jokingly greeting him as "dictator" as he arrived at an EU summit in Riga.
 

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker held talks in a very friendly and constructive climate on the sidelines of an EU leaders' meeting in Riga on Friday, according to sources who indicated that the two men looked to a possible deal early next month.