By Yiannis Makriyiannis

Government meetings are underway on Thursday to explore all scenarios that could pan out over the weekend when the future of Greece remaining in the eurozone is decided upon in Brussels. The Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) will present its proposal on Thursday in the hope of receiving a new loan from the ESM, and it is expected that there will be harsh measures for fiscal adjustment included in the program aimed at clinching a deal. The Greek government is fully aware of what Europeans want following Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos long meetings with Eurogroup Chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem on Wednesday.

The fact that Tsakalotos chose to return to Athens late on Wednesday evening, accompanied by the head of the Greek delegation in Brussels, raises questions as they had initially been scheduled to stay in Brussels: Were the creditors demands more than were expected requiring further political discussion in Athens? Was enough progress made to warrant a return to Athens so that the final details for an agreement could be completed?

Rumored reports that a deal may possibly be clinched at the Eurogroup on Friday or Saturday without the necessity of a European Council on Sunday can be interpreted as a sign of progress. A number of officials consider that there are mixed and conflicting attitudes concerning a solution to the Greek problem, as could be seen during Tuesday’s Euro Summit. Instead of leaders meeting Tsakalotos and his counterparts may reach a deal between themselves and get approval from leaders via telephone contacts.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras needs to now guesstimate the limits of measures so that they are able to pass thorugh Parliament and realistically be approved by all parties. The landslide “No” victory during the Sunday referendum showed that the majority of Greek citizens (slightly more than 61%) are against the creditors’ crippling austerity measures giving the government the popular mandate to negotiate on their behalf as he sees fit. The left faction of the Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) is pressuring for the people’s “No” to be respected in an agreement that would need to be diluted as far as austerity is concerned.

Government circles are optimistic for a respectable, honorable and viable solution for Greece. Their optimism is based on fascinating integrated developments on an international level that serve to help Greece: interventions such as that of United States Treasurer Jack Lew, IMF Chief Christine Lagarde’s statements in favor of lightening the Greek debt load, the warm French support, Italian PM Matteo Renzi’s stress over an explosion of credit to Italy following a Grexit, Portuguese concern as to a contagion and “Chinese” stockmarket fever.

Tsipras put an end to speculation over scenarios that the SYRIZA government’s secret agenda was to conspire for a return to the country’s national currency when he addressed the European Parliament on Wednesday. He was convincing.

Following the post-Referendum resignations of former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and main opposition leader Antonis Samaras – and no doubt an old Greek traditional belief in the rule of threes – there were rumors that Tsipras would be the next in line were there no deal with creditors this week. He dismissed these claims, whereas two SYRIZA officials stated that these scenarios surpassed the imagine of sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov. They pointed to the referendum result as a huge win for Tsipras personally.