Greece’s Alexis Tsipras Receives Cool Welcome at European Commission

‘I don’t think we have made sufficient progress,’ commission’s Juncker tells Greek prime minister

By GABRIELE STEINHAUSER And  VIKTORIA DENDRINOU

Updated March 13, 2015 4:34 p.m. ET

The Wall Street Journal

BRUSSELS—Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras received a cool welcome Friday from the president of the European Commission, amid heightening tensions between Athens and other European capitals over negotiations on desperately needed financial aid.

“I am not satisfied with the developments in recent weeks,” Jean Claude-Juncker said as he received Mr. Tsipras at the commission’s headquarters in Brussels. “I don’t think we have made sufficient progress.”

Concerns about Greece’s future in the eurozone have grown in recent weeks despite a decision to extend the country’s existing €240 billion ($255 billion) bailout by four months until the end of June. Since that decision in late February, progress has stalled on defining the overhauls the Greek government will implement in return for sustained help.

Mr. Tsipras and other members of his government haven’t dialed back their antiausterity rhetoric and continue to ask for reparations from Germany for its actions in World War II. The demand has alienated politicians in Germany and other eurozone countries.

Mr. Tsipras had requested a meeting with Mr. Juncker just as technical talks between Greece and the three institutions that have been overseeing its bailout—the commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund—started in Brussels and Athens this week.

Greece’s left-wing government has been hoping that the commission, the EU’s executive, would help it argue for more leeway on implementing economic overhauls and thus get its hands on a much-needed slice of rescue money.

But Mr. Juncker warned against expecting too much from Friday’s meeting. “The commission is not a major player in this,” he told journalists and Mr. Tsipras, adding that all decisions on Greece’s bailout and the accompanying measures had to be taken by eurozone finance ministers.

Still, Mr. Juncker ruled out a Greek exit from the currency union. “I do not want a failure; this is not a time for division,” he said.

Meanwhile, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis on Friday said he expected the European Central Bank will show flexibility in helping Greece pay back its debt and find a path to economic recovery.

“In the summer of 2012 when the Greek government had complete lack of access to markets, [the ECB] did various things to smooth over a cash flow program,” Mr. Varoufakis told journalists at a conference in Cernobbio, Italy. “I have no doubt the ECB will preserve the indivisibility of Europe and smooth over the cash flow problems, reaching a successful conclusion,” Mr. Varoufakis added.

During their meeting, Messrs. Juncker and Tsipras agreed to work together more closely on helping Greece absorb unused funds allocated to the country by the EU budget and make its state apparatus more nimble, a spokesman for Mr. Juncker said. That process will remain separate from the technical discussions linked to Greece’s bailout, the spokesman said.

Earlier Friday, following a meeting with Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, Mr. Tsipras said he was optimistic that tensions between Athens and the rest of the eurozone could be resolved. But some of his comments are unlikely to gain much sympathy with his negotiation partners. “There is no Greece problem; there is a European problem,” Mr. Tsipras said, adding that his country had already started to implement elements of its agreement with the rest of the eurozone.

“We are doing our part and we expect our partners to do their own,” he said.

Germany insisted Friday that it wants to keep Greece in the eurozone, but said it up to Athens to honor its commitment to overhaul the economy.

“The goal of the German government, the chancellor and the finance minister has been, for years, since the outbreak of the crisis, to preserve the eurozone as a whole—with all its members—and to stabilize it,” said Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert. “This remains our political goal: keeping Greece in the eurozone.”

He also insisted that solving the Greek crisis is not a “private feud” or bilateral issue between Berlin and Athens, but between Greece and the eurozone.

The comments come after German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said in a television interview Thursday evening that an unplanned Greek exit from the eurozone is possible, highlighting Germany’s growing frustration.

“As the responsibility, the possibility to decide what’s happening, is only with Greece and as we don’t exactly know what those in charge in Greece are doing, we can’t rule it [an unplanned Greek exit] out,” Mr. Schäuble said on Austrian broadcaster ORF during a visit in Austria.

A spokeswoman for the German finance ministry stressed Friday that Mr. Schäuble made this comments after his Austrian counterpart had earlier said he sees the risk of an unplanned Greek exit.

In Athens, Greece’s budget revenues missed targets in the first two months of the year. The political uncertainty has weighed on revenues—though less than previously expected—with income for the two-month period reaching €7.79 billion, some €963 million or 11% short of target, according to data from the Finance Ministry.

A senior government official said Greece is expected to meet the deadline for repaying the second part of its loan to the IMF for March, a senior government official said.

“The payment order has been given and it is expected to go out later Friday by the Bank of Greece,” said government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis. The installment, which is due on Friday, is worth some €340 million.

—Giovanni Legorano contributed to this article.

Write to Gabriele Steinhauser at gabriele.steinhauser@wsj.com and Viktoria Dendrinou at viktoria.dendrinou@wsj.com