- Greece's government
The Greek Government presented a new reforms package to its international creditors to finally reach a compromise and seal a deal before an extraordinary summit of Eurozone finance ministers in Brussels later today. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, François Hollande, the French President, and Alexis Tsipras, the Greek Prime Minister are expected to attend. It was still unclear how far the new proposal met to creditors' demands for additional spending cuts and tax hikes, but the offer was a ray of hope that a last-minute deal may yet be reached before Athens runs out of cash. Yet, Greece's concessions are said to include new taxes, the elimination of early retirement allowances and the country's target of a budget surplus of 1% of GDP. Greece's creditors are likely to strike a deal with Athens by extending its bailout by six months supplying 18 billion euros in rescue funds. Yet, creditors were still waiting for the Greek government to formally submit revised fiscal targets, pensions cuts and tax increases in an attempt to secure the six-month lifeline.
The ECB's governing council will also gather on Monday to discuss the level of emergency liquidity assistance to Greek banks, as the country's banking system has been under severe pressure amid surging deposit withdrawals. The ECB injected additional emergency funds into the Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) for Greece twice last week.
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