By Magda Panoutsopoulou
ATHENS, Greece
A bailout deal with Greece could happen soon, EU Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said.
Speaking to the press late on Tuesday, Dombrovskis said: "I would say that reaching the agreement within coming days is possible."
But he said that the Greek government should engage in "less tactical maneuvering and more work on substance" to reach an agreement.
Greece has submitted new proposals to the institutional creditors -- the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the EU.
But EU officials, and the Eurogroup, have reacted negatively to the new draft before meetings begin with the Greek delegation Wednesday.
Greek President Alexis Tsipras is due to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Eurogroup leader Jeroen Dijsselbloem and French President Francois Hollande on Wednesday in Brussels as well.
But, on Tuesday, Dijsselbloem warned that the meeting could be cancelled. He told reporters that an "attitude change" was needed from the Greek negotiators, or the meeting would be pointless.
The most fraught sticking point is Greece's continued demand for debt relief, which the creditors reject out of hand.
Two other issues are seeing progress toward a compromise, although they are unresolved: the amount of budget surplus that Greece is expected to show in the future, and pension reform.
On Tuesday, Tsipras said in a speech in Athens: "On measures agreed with the creditors, I believe we are very close to agreement on the primary surplus for the next few years. All it requires is a positive attitude to alternative proposals to pension cuts and the imposition of recessive measures. Our goal is measures that contain an element of redistribution and social justice."
But Tsipras warned: "All this, however, will have some meaning if the institutions are willing to find serious solutions for debt sustainability. We want to end once and for all this horrendous debate on Grexit, which has been a brake on economic stability in Europe for years. Not recycle the problem every six months."
In an interview on private channel Mega on Tuesday, Greek Minister of Labor and Social Solidarity Panos Skourletis did not exclude the possibility that Athens will revise its own 47-page proposal to the institutions if lenders continue to be intransigent, and made clear that the government will not accept the lenders' proposal for a 23 percent VAT rate on most products.
He threatened that the Syriza-led government will resort to elections if it fails to reach an agreement with Greece’s lenders.
Greece will run out of cash for its public services and banks this month, unless the final 7.2 billion euros ($8.1 billion) of its bailout funds are released by creditors. Greece must also make about $2 billion in payments to the IMF at the end of the month.
The euro has risen to about 1.12 against the dollar Wednesday from 1.08 a week before as traders become more confident in a timely deal.
