BRUSSELS (Sputnik) — The exit of Greece from the Eurozone is impossible, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Thursday.
On late Wednesday, Juncker, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem met in Brussels to discuss what Greece could do to get more funding from the international creditors.
"Grexit was never an option and will not happen, we have to consider this…. in the light of what will happen in the next few days," Junker told reporters in Brussels.
On Friday, Athens was due to make a scheduled $330-million repayment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but decided to skip the deadline, saying it would totalize all of its current four IMF debt repayments into a single one due at the end of June.
Greece was particularly hard-hit by the aftereffects of the 2008 economic crisis. Following the economic difficulties, Greece's national debt has reached around $350 billion, over three-quarters of which the country owes to its creditors, including IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB).
In late May, Greek Interior Minister Nikos Voutsis said the country did not have enough money for all the debt repayments, so Greece should seek a sensible agreement with the lenders, who, in their turn, were expected to recognize the problem and consider writing off some debts.
