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German gov't skeptical about Greece's new proposals: report

Xinhua, July 12, 2015 Adjust font size:

The German government was skeptical about Greece's latest reform proposals and offered alternative options including a temporary "Grexit", a newspaper reported on Saturday.

The German government regarded Greece's proposals as "missing centrally important areas of reform to modernize the country and to advance on the long term economic growth and sustainable development", thus could "not be the basis for a completely new, three year" bailout program, reported Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, citing a position paper from German Federal Finance Ministry.

According to the newspaper, the ministry offered two options for Greece to solve its current debt crisis. The first is to improve its proposals quickly and comprehensively and to transfer assets amounting to 50 billion euros (about 55.7 billion U.S. dollars) to a trust fund which could then sell and reduce Greece's debt.

The second is to take a "timeout" from the euro zone for at least five years, during which period Greece could restructure its debt. However, the country will remain in the European Union and receive further "growth-enhancing, humanitarian and technical assistance".

The report came as euro zone finance ministers gathered at Brussels to discuss Greece's latest reform proposals that were submitted on Thursday. It could not be confirmed by German Finance Ministry.

On Friday, the ministry spokesman Frank Paul Weber said finance ministers would discuss the review results of the troika institutions (the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund) about Greek proposals, and give their recommendations to the heads of states for a scheduled EU summit on Sunday.

"The outcome of the discussion of the Eurogroup finance ministers is totally open," he said. Endit