I've just been listening to Tusk on World Service and he was remarkably restrained. I'd have been tempted to put the boot in 'Look, it's a year since you said you were leaving and you still don't seem ready to negotiate, how long are we supposed to give you before we consider you as a failed state and impose our own terms?'.
You mean like Greece ?
Greece seeks debt relief as it edges closer to default
The Greek government has rejected a compromise proposal by the International Monetary Fund to resolve the impasse over the country’s debts, raising the possibility of a sovereign default within weeks. Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, and his ruling Syriza party said that the proposal offered Greece a “less than an honourable solution”.
The IMF believes that Greece needs debt relief, which Germany has strongly resisted before it holds national elections later in the year. With German voters increasingly apprehensive about signing more credit cheques for Greece, any talk of debt forgiveness has been billed a vote-loser for Angela Merkel. As a concession Christine Lagarde, the IMF’s managing director, told the German newspaper Handelsblatt that the fund could bow to the wishes of Mrs Merkel’s government and stay on board in the Greek bailout. She said that the fund would resist providing any further financial aid to Greece until debt relief measures had been clarified, potentially long after the German election.
Greece, however, does not want to wait. It is seeking greater clarity now on debt relief measures that could be carried out after its bailout ends in 2018 to convince wary investors that its debt, now at 197 per cent of gross domestic product, will be sustainable. This would allow Europe’s weakest economy to return to bond markets as early as the end of the year. “The IMF cannot just continue deferring decisions,” Panagiotis Rigas, a leading Syriza member, said. “It cannot insist that Greece take painful measures and when it does, turn around and say, ‘Not to worry. We’ll deal with your debt at a later time in the distant future. We have met our obligations to creditors. It is also their time to deliver.”
The remarks indicate growing frustration among leading members of the ruling party in Athens as it faces falling popularity ratings while the protracted talks continue to keep Greece’s economy in crisis. Like other government officials, Mr Rigas said he was hopeful that Greece and its creditors, with both sides scrambling to find a compromise solution, would do so ahead of a meeting of eurozone finance ministers on June 15. Greece wants eurozone lenders to disburse €7 billion at that meeting. Failure to secure the aid funds could push Greece into default by July, when it has to meet more than €7 billion in bond repayments.
In an attempt to encourage its skittish lenders, Athens legislated €4.9 billion in fresh austerity measures last month. Eurozone finance ministers, however, failed to agree with the IMF last month on debt relief terms for Greece. This week José Manuel Barroso, the former president of the European Commission, warned that Greece was still at risk of being pushed out of the single european currency. “But whether Grexit happens or not,” he told an Athens conference, “now rests on the moves of the Greek government.”