“Guarded optimism” was the theme from Athens on Wednesday, whereas the leitmotif by European leaders was more along the lines of “progress being made… no deal yet”, as the leftist Greek government in Athens faces another IMF payment, worth 750 mln euros, next week.

In terms of the latest comments:

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said further bailout assistance towards Greece had to “make sense”.

“Neither the troika, nor Europe, nor Germany can be blamed for Greece’s problems … Greece lived beyond its means for many years,” he said, referring to the institutional lenders — EC, ECB and IMF – informally known as the “troika” before being rechristened the “Institutions” to please the new Greek government.

“Since the last Eurogroup quite a bit of progress has been made,” Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said, adding:

“Still, lots of issues have to be solved, have to be deepened more, with more details, so there will be no agreements on Monday. We have to be realistic.”

Reuters quoted a Greek government “source” on Wednesday as saying that an outstanding tax and debt settlement plan so far has fallen short of a 2.5-billion-euro target and that “Athens is expected to continue resorting to other one-off measures such as holding off some payments to suppliers.”

On his part, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis was in Rome for talks with his Italian counterpart.

In another statement from an unnamed source “close” to the negotiations, Reuters quoted him as saying that “…It depends on when Tsipras decides to tell his own people that he has to cross at least some of the red lines.”

Finally, a joint statement posted on the Commission website directly pointed at a May 11 Eurogroup meeting, stating:

European Commission – Statement

Joint statement by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund

Brussels, 06 May 2015

The European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund share the same objective of helping Greece achieve financial stability and growth.

The institutions continue to work closely together toward that goal.

All three institutions are working hard to achieve concrete progress on 11 May.

STATEMENT/15/4931