Greece

For much of this year, Spanish leaders have watched the crisis in Greece with a degree of serenity. Bolstered by the country’s economic recovery and shielded by European Central Bank bond-buying, Spain had seemed impervious to contagion from the Greek turmoil, the Financial Times reported. But since Monday that sense of safety has been thrown into question as investors focus less on Spain’s recent economic performance and more on what it — and countries such as Italy, Portugal and Ireland — have in common with Greece.

As Greece lurches toward climb-down or collision with its creditors, an exhausted population is bracing for more economic pain—either way, The Wall Street Journal reported. Panagiotis Koupalidis, a 68-year-old retiree, is supporting his wife as well as their three grown children, who lost their jobs in Greece’s depression, on a pension of €700 ($790) a month. That is just over half what it was before the austerity measures imposed by creditors as the condition for bailout loans. Now Mr.

Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, vowed not to give in to demands made by his country’s international creditors, accusing them of “pillaging” Greece for the past five years and insisting it was now up to them to propose a new rescue plan to save Athens from bankruptcy, the Financial Times reported. Mr Tsipras’ remarks came less than 24 hours after the collapse of last-ditch talks aimed at reaching agreement on the release of €7.2bn in desperately needed rescue funds.

Talks aimed at reaching an 11th-hour deal between Greek ministers and their bailout creditors collapsed on Sunday evening after a new economic reform proposal submitted by Athens was deemed inadequate to continue negotiations, the Financial Times reported. The breakdown is the clearest sign yet that differences between the two sides may be too wide to breach, increasing the possibility that Athens will not secure the €7.2bn in bailout aid it needs to avoid defaulting on its debts — including a €1.5bn loan repayment due to the International Monetary Fund in just two weeks.

Only a week ago, officials on both sides of the negotiating table believed that a solution to Greece’s agonising and excruciating stand-off with its creditors was mercifully at hand, the Financial Times reported. In a late-night meeting on the 13th floor of the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Jean-Claude Juncker, the commission’s president, presented a five-page plan for Greece that had been hammered out days earlier among Europe’s most powerful leaders in private talks at the chancellery in Berlin.

Signs of a possible breakthrough on the Greek impasse emerged from Brussels on Wednesday evening, amid reports that Germany was privately in favour of providing a staggered aid deal to Greece, the Irish Times reported. Despite indications earlier in the day that negotiations on Greece would not take place on the fringes of yesterday’s EU-Latin America summit, Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras met German chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande on Wednesday night.

Greece has submitted yet another last-minute economic reform proposal to its bailout creditors — and its creditors have once again dismissed it as lacking, the Financial Times reported. The back-and-forth was the latest document exchange between Athens and Brussels as Greece tries to break a months-long impasse and gain access to desperately needed bailout cash. The process has become numbingly familiar in recent weeks — so much so that the European Commission has even given it a name: “paperology”.

In a related story, The Wall Street Journal Real Time Brussels blog reported that if Greece wants to avoid defaulting on its debts, a deal has to be found within days. But back-of-the-envelope calculations by Real Time Brussels show that the Athens government and its creditors may have until the winter to seal a third bailout deal for the country. Here is how: Greece’s decision last week to bundle this month’s payments to the International Monetary Fund means its first major redemption, €1.6 billion, is on June 30.

Greece and its creditors are discussing an extension of the country’s bailout program through March 2016, people familiar with the talks said, an offer aimed at breaking a protracted standoff over the terms for fresh aid and averting a Greek default, The Wall Street Journal reported. The proposal, first presented last week, is part of European officials’ efforts to prod the government in Athens to agree to painful concessions in exchange for rescue funds.

In a related story, the International New York Times reported that, as it confronts its creditors over its huge debts and how best to recover from a still-crippling downturn, Greece’s left-wing government faces few problems that are more substantively and politically daunting than how to meet pension promises to retirees. In the latest round of negotiations, Greece’s creditors are demanding that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras make further cuts in pensions as a condition of continued assistance in helping Greece pay its enormous debts. Mr.