No agreement reached on Greek bailout after talks in Brussels
New bid set for Monday as time runs out on reaching a financing deal
Greece's new leftist government and its international creditors have failed to agree on a way forward on the country's unpopular bailout and will try again on Monday, with time running out for a financing deal.
In seven hours of crisis talks in Brussels on Wednesday that ended after midnight, euro-zone finance ministers were unable to agree even a joint statement on the next procedural steps. Both sides played down the setback, insisting there was no rupture.
But Greek stock prices, which whipped higher after hours in New York on talk of an accord, sagged with disappointment when it emerged that Greece's laconic new Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis had walked away from a draft deal to extend current credit terms after conferring with fellow Greek officials.
"We had an intense discussion, constructive, covering a lot of ground, also making progress, but not enough progress yet to come to joint conclusions," Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the chairman of Eurogroup finance ministers, said yesterday.
"We didn't actually go into detailed proposals, we didn't enter into negotiations on content of the programme or a programme, we simply tried to work next steps over the next couple days. We were unable to do that."