Greece's
leaders have received a guarded welcome to their reported proposals for a debt
deal, ahead of crunch talks with EU creditors.
After a meeting in Rome with Greek PM Alexis Tsipras, Italian PM
Matteo Renzi said his country would "give Greece a hand" without
always agreeing with it.
Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has reportedly suggested
a new deal for exchanging debt with bailout creditors.
The radical left Greek government was elected on a pledge to end
austerity.
The Syriza party, led by Mr Tsipras, won last Sunday's vote by
promising to write off half the country's massive debt, sparking alarm on the
markets and among eurozone officials.
The Greek government also said it would refuse new loans from
the EU and the IMF, prompting questions about how it would finance itself.
This week, however, Greek leaders on a tour of European capitals
sought to allay some of the concerns.
According to the Financial Times newspaper, Mr Varoufakis has
retreated from the idea of writing off debt, instead suggesting that it could
be exchanged for bonds that would be repaid only if the Greek economy grew.
In Rome, Mr Renzi presented Mr Tsipras - noted
for his informal attire - with an Italian tie
The president of the
European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, has said the bloc will "have to
adapt a certain number of policies" to accommodate Greece.
Mr Tsipras meets Mr
Juncker in Brussels on Tuesday. He will also travel to France to meet President
Francois Hollande, whose government has also suggested a softer line on Greece.
At the meeting with Mr
Renzi in Rome on Tuesday, Mr Tsipras said Europe had to "put social
cohesion and growth before the policies of poverty and insecurity".
Mr Renzi echoed him,
saying that the world was "calling on Europe to invest in growth, not
austerity".
However, he did not
comment on the details of Greece's proposals.
Despite the
conciliatory remarks, many hurdles remain.
"Varoufakis is
intelligent, but he is underestimating the problems," a eurozone official
quoted by the Reuters news agency said.
'Ending
the addiction'
Greece still has a
debt of €315bn - about 175% of GDP - despite some creditors writing down debts
in a renegotiation in 2012.
German Chancellor
Angela Merkel has ruled out debt cancellation, saying creditors had already
made concessions.
This week, Mr
Varoufakis said that he wanted a new plan for fiscal stimulus in place by the
end of May, with repayment of existing debt tied to Greece's ability to restore
growth.
Greek
economy in numbers
·
Average wage is €600 (£450: $690) a month
·
Unemployment is at 25%, with youth unemployment almost 50%
·
Economy has shrunk by 25% since the start of the eurozone crisis
·
Country's debt is 175% of GDP
·
Borrowed €240bn (£188bn) from the EU, the ECB and the IMF
Mr Varoufakis added
that he would negotiate separately with the European Commission, the IMF and
the European Central Bank but not with officials representing all three - the
so-called "troika", which he described as a "committee of
technocrats".
The troika agreed a
€240bn (£179bn; $270bn) bailout with the previous Greek government.
Austerity measures
imposed in an effort to manage the debt prompted outrage in Greece and led
voters to reject the previous government.
Instead, Greeks voted
Syriza into power after an election campaign dominated by the party's message
of change.
In interviews in the
German media published on Saturday, Mrs Merkel said she still wanted Greece to
stay in the eurozone but did not "envisage fresh debt cancellation".
Greece's current
programme of loans ends on 28 February. A final bailout tranche of €7.2bn was
still to be negotiated but the new government has already begun to roll back
austerity measures.
sourc, bbc news
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