ATHENS: Greece’s international creditors gave Athens an ultimatum to come up with a credible reform plan on Thursday warning they would otherwise put their own proposals to euro zone finance ministers for approval, a euro zone official said.
The dramatic move came hours before European Union leaders meet in Brussels for a summit on migration, the long-term future of the euro zone and renegotiating Britain’s membership terms, that has been overshadowed by the looming Greek debt crisis.
The official said the heads of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank had given leftist Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras until 0900 GMT (0500 EDT) to come up with a new, workable proposal of reforms to unlock new funding and avert a fast approaching debt default next week.
“If there is no deal by then, the institutions will send their own proposal to the Eurogroup,” the official said. Euro zone finance ministers, known as the Eurogroup, were to reconvene at 1130 GMT (0730 EDT) after cutting short a meeting on Wednesday evening because there was no draft agreement to discuss.
