Russia Not In A Position To Help Greece: Leading Russian Bank

Russia is not in a position to resolve the crisis in Greece, the CEO of the second-largest bank in Russia said Wednesday. His comment came on the heels of an observation by Nicolas Veron, a senior fellow at the independent think tank Bruegel in Brussels that if Greece's current source of aid is “stopped and no agreement is in sight, it is difficult to imagine a scenario in which Greece stays in the eurozone for long,” according to the New York Times.

Russia’s Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak reportedly once said it would be “easy” for Greece to get a loan from the New Development Bank (NDB), formerly known as the BRICS Development Bank, but Andrei Kostin, the CEO of the Russian VTB bank, said the European Union must resolve the crisis in Greece on its own, Reuters reported.

Greece submitted an aid request Wednesday. The country is committed to justifying the new lending by presenting to creditors a detailed proposal with projected economic reforms.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said Wednesday his government had made proposals involving “credible reforms,” USA Today reported. He told members of the European Parliament in France that the proposals include an “acceptable degree of burden-sharing” with no recessionary effects.

Technical experts will review Greece’s request for a loan under the European Stability Mechanism, a bailout fund established by the eurozone in 2012. However, there won’t be any conference call among eurozone ministers Wednesday.

Meanwhile, European leaders do not appear hopeful about Greece’s chance of getting more aid. Ilmars Rimsevics, the governor of the Bank of Latvia and a member of the European Central Bank Governing Council, said in a radio interview that Greece had “voted itself out of the eurozone.”

Ewald Nowotny, another member of the ECB Governing Council, said any move to increase the availability of emergency liquidity for Greece appeared to be a distant possibility.

According to Finland’s Finance Minister Alexander Stubb, the eurozone is not looking at bridge financing for Greece “at this stage,” Reuters said.