EU commissioner Günther Oettinger: Grexit “unavoidable” without a deal in next five days
You could be forgiven for becoming increasingly sceptical about Greece's understanding of the word deadline but that's not stopping the EU from issuing another ultimatum.
This time it's Germany's EU commissioner Günther Oettinger who has said Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and team have five days to come up with a workable solution to avoid the country's expulsion from the Eurozone.
"A Grexit is not our aim but would be unavoidable if there is no solution in the next five days," he told Deutschlandfunk radio.
"We will do everything up until the 30th so that the Greeks show they are prepared to reform.”
Several deadlines have already come and gone as Athens attempts to hammer out a deal with its creditors over the Mount Olympus-sized debts owed.
In order to avoid default, Greece must secure €7.2bn in bailout funds, but to unlock those requires agreement with the troika – the IMF, the European Central Bank and the European Commission – on reforms.
The two sides had made encouraging signs of progress earlier in the week, after Tsipras' latest set of proposals appeared to go down well with the lenders.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said:
We still haven't made the necessary progress; in some places it looks like we're even going backwards.