BBC 7 July 2015

Eurozone leaders will meet this week to discuss how to deal with the growing debt crisis in Greece

Greek voters overwhelmingly rejected the terms of an international bailout on Sunday – and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is currently compiling an alternative list of proposals to present to his counterparts in Brussels.

Although some countries are keen to strike a compromise, others have taken a more hardened stance.

BBC News takes a look at where each nation stands.

The key players

Germany

The calls for Greece’s ejection from the eurozone are loudest in Germany.

Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had “torn down the last bridges” between Greece and Europe and new bailout negotiations were “difficult to imagine”.

Greece’s fate in the eurozone will have big repercussions for Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is coming under domestic pressure to abandon financial support for the Greeks. Her spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Monday that it was up to Greece to put forward proposals to stay in the euro.

A scathing Peter Sturm article (in German) in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said: “Tsipras and his government have promised their voters the impossible. The people of Greece deserved better.”

France

France’s Socialist government, more of a natural ally to Mr Tsipras’ far-left Syriza party, has been more conciliatory.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned on Tuesday that a Greek exit from the Eurozone would have global consequences and insisted the basis for a deal still existed.

“There is no taboo subject when it comes to (Greek) debt,” he added.

However, Alain Juppe, a former prime minister bidding to be presidential candidate for the opposition Republicans, wrote (in French) that Greece’s departure from the single currency could be organised “without drama”.

Italy

The Italian government is likely to join France in a push for compromise. Sandro Gozi, Italy’s top EU Affairs official, said both sides were to blame in talks he described as “a dialogue of the deaf”.

“If everyone thinks they are totally right and the others are totally wrong we will not make progress,” he told Sky Italia.

Like Greece, Italy has large levels of public debt and is seen as vulnerable to the aftershocks of a Grexit – the prospect of Greece leaving the euro.

Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni told Italian media that Greece had to shoulder the blame for its current financial situation.

“It is not the fault of mean Germans, but is the responsibility of the Greek governments which have followed one another these past 15-20 years,” he said.

Bailed out nations

Spain

“Greece forms part of the euro and that’s an obvious fact,” said the Spanish economy minister, Luis de Guindos. “We all want Greece to stay part of the euro.”

He said the Spanish government is “open” to new negotiations with Greece.

Spain was also badly hit by the financial crisis, imposing austerity measures to tackle a shrinking economy and soaring unemployment.

The radical-left Podemos party, who like Syriza, campaign on an anti-austerity platform, have enjoyed a dramatic surge in support recently.

It said the results of the Greek referendum were a victory for democracy.

Cyprus

Unusually among the small club of euro nations to have received a bailout Cyprus has backed Greek calls for its debt to be restructured.

President Nicos Anastasiades said “what is needed, in my view at this stage is to consider the unsustainability of the Greek debt,” according to the Cyprus Mail.

Cypriots know better than most the effects of a financial crisis – its biggest banks nearly collapsed in 2013, amid heavy exposure to Greek debt.

Ireland

Prime Minister Enda Kenny, whose own government imposed tough austerity measures on voters following Ireland’s bailout, insisted nobody wanted to see Greece leave the euro.

He said Alexis Tsipras was “doing the right thing” by putting fresh proposals to the European institutions, but warned they must make “economic sense”.

Media reports on Tuesday suggested Ireland may have to contribute up to €1bn (£700m) to a bailout programme for Greece if the country secures financial assistance for a third time.

Portugal

Leaders in Portugal have rejected comparisons with Greece and urged Alexis Tsipras to come up with an alternative range of proposals in order to appease fellow eurozone members.

Portugal received €78bn of loans from other eurozone members and the IMF back in 2011, but insists it has made “sacrifices” in order to move forward.

Speaking on national television Deputy Prime Minister Paulo Portas said: “The Portuguese have made a lot of effort to beat bankruptcy and do not deserve to be associated with the Greek situation.”

He called on the will of the Greek people to be respected after Sunday’s referendum, but urged the government to come up with an alternative, viable proposal “that would be acceptable to all”.

Other stakeholders

Slovakia and the Baltic States

Governments from Slovakia to Latvia have taken a notably harder line when it comes to negotiations with Greece.

They insist they are too poor to pay for its mistakes and believe it should have stuck to austerity measures laid out in its original bailout deal.

Slovakia’s Finance Minister Peter Kazimir said the prospect of the country leaving the eurozone seemed “like a realistic scenario”, while Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas insisted Greek reforms were now “unavoidable”.

Latvian Finance Minister Janis Reirs said it found itself in a similar position to Greece in 2008, and “reasonable comparisons” could be made.

“We made some austerity measures and we put our fiscal matters in order in a speedy manner,” he added. “We reduced the public sector by 30{0bbc8da4039d5376556159b0e4215760002eb23830468fe23268ef058c9f4bc9} and this was expressed in wages and reduction of staff.

“These structural reforms helped it (Latvia) to become one of fastest growing economies 2012-13.”

Poland

Poland is not yet a euro member, but must join the single currency as a condition of it entering the EU.

“The Greeks said ‘No’ to [European] aid, so they also said no to the eurozone. This will probably be a new stage towards [Athens] leaving the eurozone,” Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz told Polish state media.

The prospect of euro membership is unpopular among Poles, and the government has indicated it will not join until the debt crisis is resolved.

Finland, Netherlands, Austria

Fiscal hardliners such as the Netherlands, Austria and Finland have offered Germany their support when dealing with the Greek crisis.

“The ball is now in Greece’s court,” Finland’s finance minister, Alexander Stubb, wrote on his blog.

“Negotiations can only be resumed when the Greek government is willing to cooperate and commit itself to measures to stabilise the country’s public economy,” he added.

Meanwhile, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Greece would have to accept deep reforms if it wanted to remain in the eurozone.

Malta

It might be the smallest nation in the eurozone, but Malta is already paying a high price for the ongoing Greek crisis.

Its lending to Greece is proportionately among the highest in the region, with estimates putting it at between 2-4{0bbc8da4039d5376556159b0e4215760002eb23830468fe23268ef058c9f4bc9} of the island’s GDP.

Finance Minister Edward Scicluna compared Greece to a patient refusing medicine.

Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said that while Syriza had a duty to protect the Greek people, creditor countries also expected it “to protect the interests of the whole European project”.

Sorce from:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33408466