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GREECE’S CREDITORS HAVE piled pressure on cash-strapped Athens as the IMF pulled its team out of talks and the EU warned Athens to stop gambling with the possibility of default and a messy exit from the eurozone.
The International Monetary Fund said an agreement remained far-off after a five-month stalemate with Greece’s anti-austerity government, which faces being unable to pay huge debts at the end of the month.
Eleventh-hour talks in Brussels between Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker meanwhile broke up without reaching a deal on reforms in exchange for bailout cash.
“There are still major differences between us in most key areas,” IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told reporters in Washington.
There has been no progress in narrowing these differences recently. Thus we are well away from an agreement.
The fund said its Greek talks team had returned to Washington from Brussels and that the “ball is very much in Greece’s court right now — although it added that “the IMF never leaves the table and remains engaged”.
It said the key disagreements were on pensions, taxes and financing.
EU president Donald Tusk issued an unprecedented warning to Tsipras, telling the Greek government to stop “gambling” and saying the Eurogroup meeting would be “really crucial” and “decisive”. He told a press conference:
There is no more time for gambling. The day is coming, I am afraid, that someone says the game is over.
The IMF is the most hardline of Greece’s three bailout monitors — the others being the European Commission and European Central Bank — who have demanded tough reforms in exchange for unlocking the remaining €7.2 billionof its €240 billion rescue package.
Without fresh external funding when the bailout expires on June 30, cash-strapped Greece is set to default on its debts, meaning it could crash out of the eurozone despite benefiting from two international bailouts since 2010.
Athens shares closed with an 8.16-percent leap on Thursday, shortly before the IMF announcement, on investors’ optimism for a deal.
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God love his family.
PLEASE be careful on the roads boys and girls!!!!!
Rip, god bless his family losing a loved one so close to Christmas.
So here is a question – with the new ‘Go Safe’ mobile video vans they claim they are making the roads safer. So why is it the death tolls on the roads are still increasing? Statistically speaking there were less deaths BEFORE they started putting those speed camera vans on the streets. Why are we still throwing money down that rabbit hole if it is not making us any safer and is only acting as a new tax?
Because it is only a tax dressed up under the guise of road safety
I know some really bad corners where the signage is completely inadequate. Eg. Longford to Ballymahon road there’s a 90deg bend just before the t junction to turn left for ballymahon. N.I. have huge signs for such corners. I’ll never understand why they didnt cut the corner and striagthen the road a bit in Buttevant Co.Cork. More cars have turned over in that tight bend that folds back on itself than you could shake a stick at.
Why would you shake a stick at overturned cars?
It’s not excessive speed but driving at inappropiate speed is the main cause of speed related crashes.
This all stick and no carrot approach of the Minister and the RSA is clearly not working. There is no evidence published of drink driving fatalities ever. Pls publish the stats showing how many fatalities due to driving with 50,80, 100, and over blood alcohol levels. What really irks me is that over 99% of fatalities involve excess speed. Why not switch this annual witch hunt to a speed hunt and impose a nation wide 80Klms per hour speed limit on all roads and 100Klms for motorways with double/triple fines for all excess speed offences for this annual Christmas road traffic act compliance experiment.
Kev. Speeding drivers cause a very small percentage of car accidents
have your say