Europe came close to catastrophe as the talks between Greece and its creditors for a new bailout deal last weekend almost failed,Donald Tusk said in an interview with major Greek daily Kathimerini published on Friday.
After 17 hours of Marathon talks, the two sides finally reached a deal on Monday morning, save Greece from financial collapse and a likely exit from the euro single currency bloc.
Tusk, the former Polish prime minister who is now European Council president, said German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had haggled over how much money from a Greek privatization fund would be earmarked for investment.
"During the negotiations, around 0700 in the morning, when Tsipras and Merkel asked for a break, I felt that the risk that they would fail was very close," Tusk told Kathimerini.
"At that time their difference was only 2.5 billion euros," he said. "It was at that point that I told them that if the negotiations had ended without a result, I would have been ready to announce publicly that Europe was close to catastrophe for 2.5 billion euros."
As Reuters reports: Europe has moved to reopen funding to Greece after the parliament in Athens approved a new bailout program in a fractious vote that left the government without a majority. The European Central Bank will increase a vital cash lifeline to Greece's struggling banks that will allow them to open their doors on Monday for the first time in almost three weeks, although capital controls will have to remain in place to avoid a run on the banks.
"The most important thing in the negotiations was to help Greece. However, we had to discuss the medium and long-term consequences of a Grexit as a chaotic and unpredictable procedure with political and geopolitical impact," Tusk said.
"It was a necessary solution to avert the risk of immediate chaos and default but it's just the first step," he said.