Greece meets deadline for reform plan, setting off mad rush to avert financial ruin

Greece has met a crucial deadline to make a series of sweeping proposals that its creditors needed by midnight Thursday, setting off a mad rush toward a weekend deal to stave off a financial collapse of the nation.

The package met longstanding demands by creditors to impose wide-ranging sales-tax hikes and cuts in state spending for pensions that the left-leaning Greek government had long resisted.

It raised hopes that Greece can get the rescue deal that will prevent a catastrophic exit from the euro after key creditors said they were open to discussing how to ease the country’s debt load, a long-time sticking point in their talks.

In the text of proposals sent by Athens late Thursday, the government conceded to demands it had previously refused to accept — mostly on moving various categories of goods and services to higher sales tax rates — in exchange for a new 53.5 billion-euro (HK$458 billion) bailout package.

The government said the proposals would be voted on by Greece’s parliament late today before an emergency summit Sunday of all 28 European Union leaders.

After months of foot-dragging despite impending chaos, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met a midnight deadline with more than an hour to spare. The spokesman for eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem tweeted that it was “important for institutions to consider these (proposals) in their assessment” of the Greek situation.

Finance officials from the European institutions and the International Monetary Fund were to fine-comb through the proposals today before the 19 eurozone finance ministers assess them on Saturday.In ideal circumstances, a summit of the full European Union would be able to approve them on Sunday.