In typical European fashion, today's Greek negotiations have ended in a Schrodingerian fashion: on one hands reports are now trickling in that the Greek Eurogroup working group has concluded their meeting after 7 hours without a result...
#Greece [6] Eurogroup-Working Group ended after 7 hrs without result, sources say
— Rolf-Dieter Krause (@rdk_bxl) February 19, 2015 [7]
... while on the other, Market News is reporting [8]that Eurozone deputies have "drafted a statement that could well serve as a basis for a compromise between Greece and the Eurozone, to be examined by finance ministers Friday."
More:
The positions of Greece and the Eurozone over future financing for Athens moved much closer at a meeting of finance ministry deputies in Brussels, three sources with knowledge of the discussions told Euro Insight Thursday.
One source, a veteran Eurozone official, said, “positions seem to be reasonably close.”
Speaking on condition of anonymity, he added that Eurogroup deputies had drafted a statement that would serve as a basis for a compromise between Greece and the Eurozone, to be signed off subsequently by finance ministers.
The deputies are “close to an agreement but (it is) subject to political discussion,” a second source with knowledge of the talks said.
A third source confirmed that Eurogroup ministers would meet Friday in Brussels for a political discussion and to check the text.
“Everyone has to check with the boss,” he said. Germany’s reaction to the compromise from deputies will come under particular scrutiny Friday given its recent cool reaction to Greece’s recent stance on its future financing.
One can only wonder how much EURUSD or Greek government bonds exposure those unnamed sources with "knowledge" have. In any event according to the same sources, "the draft is "broadly" based on a Greek submission from earlier Thursday, the second source added."
Of course this is the same draft that Germany threw up all over earlier, and in a leaked letter expressly stated the language [9]that must be included for a compromise to be achieved - language which would crush any anti-Memorandum credibility the Greek government may have wanted to preserve:
... we need a clear and convincing commitment by Greece, which may just contain three short and well understandable sentences: “We apply for the extension of the current programme, making use of built-in flexibility. We will agree with the institutions any changes in measures from the existing MoU. And we aim at successfully concluding the programme”.
... Greece has to publicly confirm that it will refrain from unilateral national measures to roll back the current programme. The authorities will, with immediate effect, not take any initiative or implement any measure or policy which is inconsistent with existing commitments under the current programme or aggravate the fiscal situation. This includes refraining from announced labour market and social reforms to be voted in Parliament this week.
Which means that Tsipras will have to publicly undo all the promises he made on national TV on at least on occasion in the past several weeks: hardly a palatable outcome to the current elected on a mandate of "ending austerity."
Finally, this is not the first time MNI, or CNBC, or Reuters, or Bloomberg, have jumped the shark promising a deal is imminent only for absolutely nothing to materialize.
So is the Greek cat alive or dead? Find out tomorrow when it now appears that courtesy of Greece running out of state funding much earlier than expected, and as a result of the ongoing deposit run, is when the previous D-Day of February 28 has been "seasonally-adjusted" to.
