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European Council President Donald Tusk and Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel (not pictured) hold a press conference at the Foreign Ministry in Luxembourg, July 09, 2015. Photo by EPA/BGNES
European Council President Donald Tusk has cancelled the summit meeting of European Union heads of government scheduled to discuss Greece on Sunday.
Tusk wrote on Twitter that only a "EuroSummit", one of leaders of Eurozone member states, will take place at 16:00 local time - when the European Council was due to begin.
On Sunday all EU leaders were due to meet for talks over Greece's latest reforms proposal which could secure a third bailout package for the debt-ridden country.
I have cancelled #EUCO today. #EuroSummit to start at 16h and last until we conclude talks on #Greece
— Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) July 12, 2015
This comes after a failure of Eurozone finance ministers to reach an agreement on a bailout deal with Greece - one that could have been formally approved by all EU members. The Eurogroup is now set to reconvene at 11:00 local time.
Sunday's crunch talks - the second EU Council session in just days - ended in a deadlock as the leaders were negotiating over the new reform plans, and reportedly demanded that more be done by Athens if it is to receive additional funding.
Some ministers voiced doubt that the country will be able to put all austerity measures tabled by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras after a massive "no" vote in a Greek referendum on bailout conditions.
The rest of the Eurozone requires of Greece to be "more specific" on product and labor market reform, according to the BBC.
In Europe itself a "yes" and a "no" camp are emerging on whether to give Greece more than EUR 53.5 B in funding to pay its debt by 2013. Italy and France believe a deal should be in place by Sunday, while Finland, Germany and the Netherlands are reluctant to granting billions in bailout funding to Greece again.
Reports by the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung even suggested that Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble had been exploring the idea to suspend Greece from the Eurozone for a five-year period. A EU official later refuted this, saying it was "nonsense".
The Sunday deadline is also partly imposed by the country's financial situation, which is worsening by the minute, and the fact that banks in Greece have been shut down since June 29. Officials suggest the country will run out of money by the evening of Monday, July 13.
More to follow.
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