Greece and troika creditors exit 'last attempt' talks without deal

Greece and its creditors left talks towards an agreement without any results on Sunday night (14 June) with only two weeks left before it has to repay €1.6bn (£1.16bn, $1.8bn) to the IMF.

The talks, which were seen as the last attempt to reach a deal, collapsed because the parties could not agree on the amount of permanent budget savings imposed on Greece to repay the billions of euros to its creditors.

As the parties fail to come to a deal, Greece comes closer to a Eurozone exit, although the country's finance minister said he ruled out a 'Grexit' as a sensible solution.

The difference between Greece's proposal and what is demanded by the country's creditors is €2bn (£1.45, $2.24bn). This means a difference between 0.5% and 1% of Greece's gross domestic product.

The IMF has already extended the deadline for Greece, as the first instalment of the payments should originally have been made on 6 June.

Last week, representatives of the IMF walked out of talks with Greek officials, saying there had been no progress in narrowing differences between the parties.

'Lotting creditors'

The on-going talks on a cash-for-reform deal are even more complicated now, as officials of Greece's ruling party, Syriza, have increased pressure on their leader to stand firm against the creditors.

Syriza leaders promised an end to years of austerity in Greece while the lending parties now demand severe cuts to repay the country's enormous debts.

The morning after the talks on Sunday, Greece's PM Alexis Tsipras told Greek newspaper Ton Syntakton that he demands an end to the harsh terms demanded by the Troika parties.

"One can only see a political purposefulness in the insistence of creditors on new cuts in pensions after five years of looting under the bailouts. We will await patiently until the institutions accede to realism. We do not have the right to bury European democracy at the place where it was born," he told the newspaper.

But with both parties unwilling to give in, optimism about the deal that was shown over the last weeks, seems to have been a façade.

Eurozone finance ministers are meeting on Thursday (18 June) and the European Commission said that the parties would pick up the talks then, despite the fact that the day was initially seen as a deadline for an agreement.

In a strongly worded statement, the European Commission said: "While some progress was made, the talks did not succeed as there remains a significant gap between the plans of the Greek authorities and the joint requirements of the commission, European Central Bank and IMF"

The main index on Greece's stock exchange fell 6.5% over the weekend, after falling 5.9% on Friday.