Merkel-Hollande-Tsipras meeting: Rumors to call it off again!

It was scheduled, called off, called on… but now there are rumors that it won’t take place after all!

The planned meeting between the leaders of Germany, France and Greece on the sidelines of the EU-CELAC in Brussels is in doubt… for the second time! The cause for this is the fact that Greece’s reform proposals are short of what European Union officials hope, casting a shadow over the meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

The three had hoped to clinch a political agreement on technical proposals that had been submitted earlier in the week. Greece was to have implemented the reports in exchange for release of a tranche benchmarked for the country to save it from default and a possible Grexit.

The meeting looked doubtful on Tuesday, but there was talk that it would go ahead on Wednesday until an EU official said that “If there is no movement, there is no meeting,” while adding that Germany and France don’t see the point of a meeting for now.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was unlikely to attend the meeting following his own clash with Tsipras after the Greek PM dismissed Juncker’s proposals as “absurd”. Juncker told fellow EU commissioners that a meeting with the PM would be a “waste of time.”

So far Greece’s proposals have been dismissed as “irrelevant” and “not enough”.