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Since yesterday Greece is on the very cusp between an agreement and a rift. The utter deadlock in the negotiations was averted after a telephone conversation between Prime Minister Tsipras and EC President Jean-Claude Juncker on Friday afternoon. Nonetheless, the differences between the government and the creditors are not out of the way.

The most important one of them is Greece's sovereign debt. Athens is ready to accept an increase of the primary budget surplus to 1% of GDP in 2015.

According to reports, at the talks between Tsipras, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande during the EC Summit last Wednesday, the Greek prime minister has shown willingness to discuss the raising of the budget surplus to 1%, as demanded by the institutions, through transferring the bonds in ECB’s possession to the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). But Merkel has rejected this option.

According to the same sources, the two leaders asked Tsipras to complete the negotiations with the institutions and the current assessment, so that they might make a pledge to Greece similar to that of 2012: that the debt issue will be revisited in the future.

Given the circumstances, the issues of the budget surplus and debt are crucial as to whether an agreement will materialise at the 18 June Eurogroup meeting: this will put an end to the five-month uncertainty; otherwise, the Grexit scenarios will become more menacing than ever before.

The concessions

After the ultimatum at the Euroworking Group last Thursday, and after the long-hour meeting of the negotiating group at the Greek government headquarters – where they discussed the scenarios for a breakup, defaulting to the IMF and early elections as well – Alexis Tsipras seems ready to make two vital concessions:

Government ministers are ready to sit at the table with representatives of the institutions. Yannis Dragasakis, Nikos Papas and Efklidis Tsakalotos have been in Brussels since yesterday. Their task is to convey the new Greek proposals to Juncker’s representative. If these proposals are deemed palatable, the ministers are going to meet with representatives of the IMF, the European Commission and the ECB in the coming days as well. This constitutes an important development because last Monday – as instructed by Tsipras – Tsakalotos and Papas turned down the attendance of institutions’ representatives at their meeting with the Commission man Pierre Moscovici.

At the political level, Athens has agreed to discuss a surplus in the vicinity of 1% for 2015 for the first time, and this entails tampering with pensions as well rather than raising VAT alone. According to Tsipras associates, Athens will succumb to a surplus of 1% if the partners greenlight a return to collective bargaining and, of course, if it can get something meatier on debt than just a general statement.

The deadlines

The coming hours and days will be crucial as the deadline is the Eurogroup meeting on 18 June. As recognised by government representatives, if a final decision is not reached on that very date, the negotiations can only last a few days afterwards. And this is the case because Merkel, Hollande and Juncker have all given a clear signal that a large part of the agreement will have to be voted before 30 June, so that a possible extension of the Greek programme be endorsed by member state parliaments, including the German one. The Greek government has reportedly been trying to scramble the wherewithal, which will enable it to cope even if negotiations with the partners drag through July.

Anyhow, if the negotiations come to fruition, the next act of the drama will take place on Greek soil – in SYRIZA circles, in its Central Committee and in parliament as well. Both government and parliamentary representatives of SYRIZA recognize the fact that the internal party battle, which Tsipras will have to fight, will be ruthless and with uncertain outcome. Yet they believe that whatever the agreement, it stands a good chance of being approved by SYRIZA’s Central Committee, if it involves a few concessions on employment and debt. Things look differently in SYRIZA’s parliamentary group. But Stavros Theodorakis had a chat with Tsipras on Friday and told Potami’s parliamentary group that same evening: "A decision is what we want of this parliament. Today, because tomorrow may be too late. We will vote for the agreement."