No Bridge Loans for Greece

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will chart a path forward for Greece in parliament on Sunday, two days after the head of the euro-area finance ministers’ group shot down his proposal to avoid being shut off from funding at the end of the month.

The new government’s request for a debt writedown has already been rejected, and Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem on Friday rejected a request for a short-term financing agreement to keep the country afloat while it renegotiates the terms of its bailout program.

“We don’t do” bridge loans, Dijsselbloem told reporters in The Hague, when asked about Greece’s request. “A simple extension is possible as long as they fully take over the program.”

 The European Union’s latest rebuff raises the stakes for Greece’s new government. The next showdown is scheduled for Feb. 11 in Brussels, when Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis faces his 18 euro-area counterparts in an emergency meeting after Tsipras delivers his major policy address to lawmakers.

Standard & Poor’s lowered Greece’s long-term credit rating one level to B- and kept the ratings on CreditWatch negative.

“Liquidity constraints have narrowed the timeframe during which Greece’s new government can reach an agreement with its official creditors on a financing program, in our view,” S&P said in a statement.

Greece’s goal remains to achieve a bridge program that would give it time to negotiate with its creditors and devise a three- to four-year fiscal plan.

Varoufakis has said his government won’t accept any more cash under the terms of Greece’s existing bailout, leaving 7 billion euros of potential aid on the table, rather than complying with demands for more austerity attached to the country’s international bailout agreement.

The standoff risks leaving Europe’s most-indebted state without any funding as of the end of this month, following the Jan. 25 election victory of Tsipras’s Syriza party.

While there’s little doubt Tsipras will win the confidence vote — his coalition has 162 seats in the 300-seat chamber — attempts to persuade the rest of the euro-region to endorse his plan to restructure the country’s debt and boost spending have so far drawn a blank. Tsipras and Varoufakis, have been recalibrating their rhetoric this week after markets plunged during their first days in office.

No Bridge Loans

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