Greece: Can the Twain Meet?

Matt Levine writes:  European leaders are working frantically with the International Monetary Fund to finalize their proposal on how to restructure Greek debt, though differences remain “over whether Greece can hit ambitious budget surplus targets to be included in an agreed text,” as well as over “whether they present their proposal to Mr Tsipras’ government during a meeting or a teleconference.” This being Europe, one official says that there was “at least a meeting of the texts; minds are probably further apart,” which is the opposite of how normal negotiations work.

Meanwhile, as the European leaders’ texts were being so agreeable, boom, Greece submitted its own proposal to its creditors.  “After submitting a complete proposal for a deal last night to institutions, we are not waiting for them to submit their own plan back to us,” Tsipras said. “Greece is the one that submits the plan.”

So to recap: Greece’s creditors have more or less worked out the text of the proposal to submit to Greece, though they don’t agree on what that text means, or on how to deliver it. And Greece has worked out its own unrelated proposal, and plans to ignore the proposal that the creditors have been slaving over, though I guess that would be easier to do by teleconference than in person? Anyway, everything seems super, carry on.

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