Greece sticks with hard stance on eve of new Eurogroup talks as default risk nears

Greece stuck with the hard stance on Friday on the eve of the new Eurogroup talks which could be the last chance to reach a debt deal to avoid a default and possible Grexit in coming weeks.

At the end of a week long round of tough deliberations in Brussels with international lenders, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras returned to Athens to chair a cabinet meeting on Friday evening to decide his Leftist government's next steps.

With only four days left to the June 30 deadline when the Greek bailout program expires and Athens needs to repay a 1.5 billion euro (about 1.68 billion U.S. dollars) loan installment to the International Monetary Fund, uncertainty whether a reforms for cash agreement would be finalized on time prevailed.

As long as Greece does not back down, threats subside and logic prevails, government sources said on Friday night.

The same sources said that the government turned down the latest proposal of lenders for a new five-month extension of the bailout to December as "inadequate."

Athens argued that the proposal did not represent a substantial solution and even in the short term it did not resolve financing issues leading to a new bailout.

Earlier on Friday speaking to media after the end of an EU summit in Brussels, Tsipras had reminded that the EU's founding principles "were not based on blackmails and ultimatums."

On the sidelines of the summit according to media reports the Greek leader told another European leader that in case no white smoke emerges from talks with lenders he was ready to call snap general elections.

During an interview with a Greek television channel on Friday evening, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis assured that polls will not be necessary.

"There is no reason why we should not reach an agreement in the Eurogroup ... It is our duty to find a solution," he said. Endit