Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras spoke by phone with Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and EU Council President Donald Tusk over the last 24 hours to press for a Greek debt relief deal at the upcoming June 15 Eurogroup, as previously confident statements of a looming agreement - bumped from one Eurogroup session to another over the past six months -- gave way to Greek government "nail-biting" this week.
Tsipras and his leftist-rightist coalition government face a bailout payment of roughly seven billion euros in July. Nevertheless, a second review of the Greek program is still pending and debt relief also appears elusive, given diverging views between the IMF and European creditors. Without the second review disbursement of up to 10 billion euros in fresh bailout loan tranches cannot proceed.
According to Tsipras' office, the former anti-bailout, anti-austerity Greek premier called for a "clear" solution to the debt issue.
