Greek PM to seek EU summit on creditor talks

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will on Wednesday ask European Council president Donald Tusk to call an EU summit to help facilitate negotiations with the debt-ridden country’s creditors, a government source said.

Tsipras’s decision came after a meeting of eurozone finance ministers, mooted for Thursday, was postponed, with Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem saying “more time” was needed to decide on the next steps for Greece’s massive bailout.

“No additional Eurogroup on Greece this Thursday, more time needed,” Dijsselbloem’s spokesman Michel Reijns wrote on Twitter.

“Meeting on first review, contingency package and debt at later stage,” he wrote late on Tuesday.

Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, had said earlier Tuesday that a meeting could take place Thursday “to finalise as many things as possible” in unlocking bailout cash and triggering potential debt relief for Greece.

But he told Dutch broadcaster RTL-Z that the meeting would only happen if it had “a chance of succeeding”.

Debt-crippled Greece still needs to deliver crucial reforms in order to unlock more cash from its massive 86-billion-euro ($95 billion) bailout plan.