EU spokesman confirms Juncker won't meet with Greek PM

Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas confirmed on Wednesday that European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has no scheduled meeting with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras the same day.

Schinas also said Juncker is taking part in a summit of European Union and Caribbean and Latin American leaders in Brussels on Wednesday afternoon, which Tsipras will also attend.

Tsipras hopes to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande on the sidelines of the summit in the hope that progress will be made in cash-for-reforms talks, with the goal to release left over funding to the cash-strapped radical leftist government in Athens. This meeting is up in the air as well, according to a French source.

“There is nothing on the president’s schedule other than his participation in the summit,” Schinas told a daily news briefing.

Juncker hasn’t concealed his displeasure of the Greek government’s recent handling of delicate negotiations with institutional creditors, especially the lack of “alternative proposals” over the weekend.

Tsipras’ term of “absurd” to characterize a draft agreement presented by Juncker, speaking in Parliament no less, also peeved the Commission president.

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