According to Süddeutsche Zeitung, one of Germany's biggest newspapers, there is the possibility of extending Greece's bailout program until Fall.
According to the German newspaper the Greek government and the 'troika' of creditors will reach a short-term deal by early next month before Junes’ G7 meeting in Germany. Greece will also be given €4-5 billion to cover the country's immediate needs. Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and General Secretary Christoforos Vernardakis also made statements about a “transitional agreement” by early June.
Speaking to the Guardian in Athens last night, government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis said that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is due to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday night, after EU leaders had attended an official summit dinner in Riga, Latvia.
The Riga meeting is officially called the Eastern Partnership summit, and will include discussions on conflict resolution in the region. On the sidelines of the summit Tsipras and Merkel will discuss the urgency of Greece’s liquidity problem, and issues such as VAT, pensions and labor deregulation which continue to be the major stumbling blocks between the two sides. “Talks would focus on the headway negotiators had made since the two leaders last met” said Sakellaridis.
But Sakellaridis sought to satisfy coalition MPs that his government would honor the anti-austerity pledges that brought it to power, “It is not a question of red lines or the Euro zone. It boils down to what everybody has understood in the last five years which is that the regime of austerity has failed” he said to the Guardian.
Since taking power in January, Tsipras's leftist government has been locked in talks with its EU/IMF/ECB lenders over a deal that will disburse further aid to the country, but risks running out of cash if the two sides fail to agree.