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 Neither side has shown any sign of yielding, with creditors
insisting it is up to Greece to make concessions to secure a
cash-for-reforms deal so the government can honor looming debt
repayments and avoid a potentially disastrous default.
Far from giving ground, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras launched
a new attack on the lenders in an article in a German newspaper,
slamming what he called their "blind insistence" on pension cuts he
said would worsen his country's crisis.
The leftist leader began a two-day visit to Russia to attend an
economic forum in St. Petersburg as euro zone finance ministers
gathered in Luxembourg to discuss the impasse. Given that Athens
ruled out bringing new proposals to the discussion, hopes for a
breakthrough at the meeting have all but vanished.
Arriving for the Luxembourg meeting, EU Economics Commissioner
Pierre Moscovici told reporters he didn't want the debt standoff to
turn into a rerun of the Battle of Waterloo on the 200th anniversary
of the historic defeat for France.
"Today is an important date and I have no desire to see us return to
the age of Waterloo when the Europeans were all lined up against a
single state," he said.
With European leaders and Greece's central bank warning a possible "Grexit"
was on the horizon, European shares fell and Greek shares <.ATG> hit
a new three-year-low.
In a sign of growing nervousness among many Greeks about their
country's fate, pro-euro demonstrators will hold a rally in central
Athens, calling for an end to the deadlock. That comes a day after
anti-austerity protesters rallied in support of the government and
against policies set by lenders.
"I'm still convinced: where there's a will, there's a way," Merkel
told German lawmakers, repeating a message from last week. "If those
in charge in Greece can muster the will, an agreement ... is still
possible."
Merkel faces growing opposition from within her ruling conservatives
to granting Greece any more bailout money, with a narrow majority of
Germans now in favor of Greece leaving the euro zone.
Having been voted into power in January on a pledge to roll back
austerity, Tsipras's leftist government has balked at demands for
new pension cuts and tax hikes on basic goods like food and
electricity.
PRO-EURO RALLY
Athens needs to break the impasse by the end of the month, when it
faces a 1.6 billion euro ($1.8 billion) repayment due to the
International Monetary Fund that could force it to default.
Greeks have been squeezed by five years of budget cuts demanded by
the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the
European Central Bank in two bailouts. But opinion polls suggest the
majority want to stay in the euro.
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"Greece belongs to Europe!" read one Facebook invitation to join
Thursday's pro-euro rally, which had received more than 11,000
"likes" by Thursday morning.
"We are sending a strong message to the government," it said. "It's
time we join our voices in favor of our country staying in the euro
and in the European family."
Those calls were echoed in an open letter by a group of Greek
businesses -- including tourism operators and retailers -- to
Tsipras, urging him to close a deal.
"Greece's relations with our partners have been hit hard and both
sides are responsible for that," the letter said. "But the most
important thing is to not sacrifice a great national achievement
which is Greece's euro zone membership and to put an end to this
"balance of terror" which has frozen the economy and undermines any
growth prospect," they said.
Tsipras is expected to meet business leaders in St. Petersburg ahead
of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
In a guest column for Der Tagesspiegel newspaper in Berlin, Tsipras
sought to dispel a "myth" that German taxpayers were paying Greek
pensions and wages.
"The blind insistence of cuts (in pensions) in a country with a 25
percent unemployment rate and where half of all the young people are
unemployed will only cause a further worsening of the already
dramatic social situation," he said.
(Additional reporting by Ingrid Melander in Luxembourg; Writing by
Matthias Williams; Editing by Crispian Balmer)
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