Eurogroup breaks up with no agreement on Greece

Eurozone finance ministers met briefly on Monday (22 June) to discuss Greece but broke off with no agreement, due to confusion over the content and timing of Athens' latest proposals.

Heading into the special eurogroup meeting, finance ministers lined up to criticise Greece and downplay the likelihood of a breakthrough that would see Greece get the remaining €7.2bn in bailout money ahead of a 30 June deadline.

Shortly after the meeting started Finnish finance minister Alex Stubb tweeted: "Eurogroup ends. Work continues. Institutions assess proposals."

But the signs that it could end up a fruitless gathering were already apparent before it started.

Going into the meeting Stubb spoke of wasting "air miles" while his Irish counterpart Michael Noonan said "we're still not quite clear what the actual proposals are".

The confusion came about after it emerged that Greece had sent the wrong version of its latest proposals to creditors early on Monday morning.

This led to a situation where EU economic affairs commissioner Pierre Moscovici was early Monday speaking about proposals that were a "good basis" for progress while German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, in the early afternoon, said "the situation has not changed since Thursday" (when euro finance minister last met).

"I don't know of any new proposals," said Schaueble.

Meanwhile the Slovak finance minister Peter Kazimir said a "simple" bailout extension for Greece would only be "plastic surgery" and he referred, as several others did, to the likelihood of another meeting of the eurogroup on Thursday ahead of the EU leaders' regular summer summit.

"We might see each other again soon," he said.

Austria's finance minister Hans Joerg Schelling, speaking of the proposals' confusion, said the whole situation "could really have been handled more professionally" noting that if Athens' ideas had been tabled on Thursday it might have been possible to get an agreement on Monday.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, head of the eurogroup, noted that the proposals have "only come in very very recently" so it will be "impossible to have a final assessment".

The French and German leaders were also downbeat about the likelihood of an agreement.

President Francois Hollande said a deal on Monday "would be better" but if one is not reached then the "foundation" needs to be set for a deal later this week. Chancellor Angela Merkel noted that "there are still a lot of days in the week in which decisions can be taken".

But despite their calm reactions, there are real fears about the rate of withdrawals from Greek banks and about the possibility of Greece defaulting on the money it owes to the IMF at the end of the month.