Europeans must work together to find a solution for Greece, said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker during his meeting with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Brussels.
The EC chief said he is optimistic that negotiations on Greece’s bailout will have the desirable outcome. “There hasn’t been much progress in the past few weeks and we are here to make progress. I will make a certain number of proposals to my friend Alexis and then I will see what will happen, but I am totally excluding a failure. Europeans must work together as the European Union vision dictates,” said Juncker.
The Greek prime minister said that “we must find the best way to implement the decisions of the February 20th Eurogroup.” “I am optimistic there is political will to find a solution soon,” said Tsipras. “When there is political will, everything is feasible,” he added.
Athens must implement the required reforms to get the remaining funds from the bailout program. Without the money, Greece will have difficulties paying off debts that are due, raising the risk of bankruptcy and a potential exit from the euro zone.
Prior to the meeting with the EC president, Tsipras met with European Parliament President Martin Schulz. The Greek premier asked for the help of European partners. As he said, “We honor our commitments and we expect the same from our partners.” He added that he is optimistic that there will be an honest compromise at the end, because Greece’s problem is also Europe’s problem.
Tsipras said he is glad that the discussion started with the essence of the problem, which is to give priority to growth. He repeated the need to tackle youth unemployment and the humanitarian crisis and to give a message of hope to Greek people, not only the message that they have obligations.
Schulz said that solutions are reached only through dialogue between euro zone members, even though sometimes there is a different interpretation of official decisions. The European parliament president also expressed his optimism that misunderstandings will be resolved and a solution will be found in the end.
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