Athens: Greece on Tuesday requested a two-year rescue deal with the European Union to save the crisis-hit country, just hours before its international bailout expires.
"The Greek government today proposed a two-year agreement with the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to fully cover its financing needs and the simultaneous restructuring of debt," the prime minister's office said in a statement Tuesday.
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Eurozone finance ministers will hold an emergency conference call Tuesday to discuss a last-minute proposal by Athens, just hours before Greece's current bailout expires, Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem said.
"Extraordinary Eurogroup teleconference tonight 19:00 (1700 GMT) Brussels time to discuss official request of Greek government received this afternoon," Dutch finance minister Dijsselbloem said in a tweet.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras requested a two-year rescue deal with the European Union to save the crisis-hit country, just hours before its international bailout expires later Tuesday.
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Tsipras also requested a short extension to its current bailout programme to avoid a "technical default," with a 1.5 billion euro payment due to the IMF in just hours.
The call comes just three days after the Eurogroup rejected Greece's request for an extension to its bailout, following the Greek government's announcement of a referendum on Sunday on reform demands by Athens's creditors.
In a statement Tuesday, the Greek government said the radical-leftist government "remained at the table" and made a request for a new two-year rescue programme with the EU's bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism.
The Greek government has recommended that voters vote 'no' to reforms demanded by its EU-IMF creditors.
European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker on Tuesday set out a his own "last-minute" solution to reach a debt deal before the referendum.
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Juncker said a deal would involve Tsipras accepting the reform proposals that Greece's EU-IMF creditors made at the weekend and backing a "yes" vote in Sunday's plebiscite..
European Union officials say Greece would lose access to more than 16 billion euros ($18 billion) in financial support if its bailout program expires at midnight (2200 GMT).
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because contacts about the program were still ongoing, said three sources of money would disappear in the event of no agreement to extend the bailout.
These include 1.8 billion euros from the EU's financial stability fund, 10.9 billion euros from a Greek bank rescue fund, and a further 3.4 billion euros in central bank profits.
Greece can apply for some other form of assistance, but this could take weeks to organize. In that case, an assessment would first have to be made on whether Greece is eligible, what kind of terms the new package would function under and the kinds of reforms that Athens would undertake in return.
