Wednesday: Day-D to solve the Greek crisis

USPA NEWS - On Wednesday June 24th is not a regular day in Europe. The European Council meeting in Brussels with the Greek crisis as single theme can open the door to the agreement that would prevent Greece going bankrupt and even leave the Euro.

After Monday's meeting between Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, and members of the European Council, where they were put on table the reforms that the Greek government is willing to carry out, in exchange for a debt restructuring, the minds of the negotiators have changed. Now the Greek effort is valued closer to the approach of the Troika, even if this may lead to step back in its initial proposals and touch issues that were nonnegotiable few weeks ago. Including pensions, the increase in VAT and taxes.

This seeks to cut the deficit of the Greek government to 8,000 million euros between now and 2016. But Athens still want to save a minimum of his political and therefore refuses to touch the lowest pensions, although it would tighten conditions of early retirement and delay the retirement age. The same applies to VAT: keep the three existing types -from 6%, 13% and 23%- but considerably reduce the products covered by the reduced rate and maintain the energy in the medium.

It is not a fulfillment of the EU requirements, but it is an important approach in order to secure financing for Greece in the coming months. And members of the European Council appreciate the effort. For the first time, qualify the Greek offer "realistic". The Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, said after the meeting that may be optimistic because "we are in the last periods of the second program" and "progress has been made."

According to Rajoy, "Greece has already submitted a proposal that effectively reverses many of the things he said at the time and I think it is very positive that they have done." Therefore, he added, "can be more optimistic." The Spanish chief executive said it is still necessary to "make an effort" and "work" to finally get this agreement between the European partners and the Hellenic country. In his opinion, "Greece known to have European solidarity," although "it must combine it with responsibility and fulfill the agreements and commitments".

For its part, the president of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker, said: "I simply wanted to say that the proposals that the Greek government was submitting to our meditation tonight and early this morning -although these proposals were coming in with some delay- are a major step taken by the Greek authorities into the direction of the expectations of the three institutions involved in that process. I am confident that the Eurogroup on Wednesday will produce results to be submitted to the European Council on Thursday. I am convinced that this is not only our intention to finalise the decision -making process this week- we will finalise the process this week."