Greece back in the fold

After days of fractious exchanges with its international creditors, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has urged Europe to show solidarity with his country as it awaits the approval of a vital bail-out extension.   Speaking after a meeting with European officials in Brussels, Mr Tsipras said his government was doing all it could to fulfill the conditions of its bail-out and called on Greece's partners to do the same.  Striking a more optimistic tone than in recent days, Mr Tsipras said: "we will find a solution because I strongly believe that this is our common interest.

"I believe that there is no Greek problem, there is a European problem."

His comments came after Germany's Wolfgang Schaeuble warned that Athens' brinkmanship over implementing economic reforms could result in a disorderly Greek exit from the eurozone - dubbed a "Grexident".   "To the extent that Greece is solely responsible and decides what is to happen, and we don't know exactly what Greek leaders are doing, we can't exclude it," said Mr Schaeuble.  The claims are unlikely to soothe tensions between Greece and the eurozone's largest creditor country.  Mr Schaeuble was the subject of an official complaint from Athens who accused the finance minister of making derogatory comments about his Greek counterpart Yanis Varoufakis.

But there were tentative signs of a thawing between the two sides, with reports suggesting Berlin was willing to stand down over its opposition to Greek plans to issue short-term debt to alleviate its funding crisis.  The European Cental Bank has so far rebuffed Athens' requests to raise the ceiling on the issuance of Treasury bonds.  Instead the ECB has been drip feeding its emergency assistance (ELA) to Greece's banks which have suffered from rising desposit flight since Syriza came into power. There we are then...Greece back in the fold...after all that hype...