Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras presented new proposals to European leaders today aimed at ending his country's debt crisis, on the eve of a summit that could determine whether Greece crashes out of the eurozone.
In a telephone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Tsipras detailed a "mutually beneficial deal", the Greek premier's office said in a statement.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi urged the two sides to seize a "window of opportunity", saying all conditions were in place for them to reach a "win-win accord".
Athens said its new proposals were aimed at reaching a "definitive solution" to the five-month standoff between Athens and its creditors -- the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank -- as fears deepened over a potential "Grexit" from the eurozone.
The heads of the 19 eurozone countries will hold an emergency summit on the crisis in Brussels on Monday under pressure to prevent Greece from defaulting on its debt with a June 30 payment deadline fast approaching.
The head of Greece's biggest bank said she thought "sanity will prevail" tomorrow.
"To enter into such uncharted waters and take up all the risk both for the eurozone and for Greece for two or three billion (euro) difference, I think it's insane," National Bank of Greece chief Louka Katseli told BBC radio.
Greece's anti-austerity government met today to refine its proposals, while a European source said Tsipras and Juncker "held talks yesterday and will again speak Sunday", adding that there were many exchanges and "informal work under way to find a solution".
Failing a deal, Greece is likely to default on an IMF debt payment of around 1.5 billion euros (USD 1.7 billion) due on June 30, setting up a potentially chaotic exit from the eurozone.
Last Wednesday the Greek central bank put the risk in stark terms saying: "Failure to reach an agreement would... mark the beginning of a painful course that would lead initially to a Greek default and ultimately to the country's exit from the euro area and -- most likely -- from the European Union."
The IMF was called in to help rescue Greece at the end of 2009 when the debt-plagued country could no longer borrow on international markets.
The EU's involvement in the huge bailout, which was to provide 240 billion euros (USD 270 billion) in loans in exchange for drastic austerity measures and reforms, runs out at the end of this month, but IMF support was supposed to continue to March 2016.
Talks between Greece's radical-left government and its lenders have been deadlocked for five months over the payment of the final 7.2 billion euro tranche of the bailout, with talk also turning to an extension of the European help.
