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Greece should take "some very difficult steps" and it would be a challenge for the Greek Prime Minister to persuade his supporters to do so, according to US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who had a telephone conversation with Alexis Tsipras earlier today. In his lecture at the London School of Economics, he urged Athens and its creditors to accelerate the pace of negotiations and find a solution in order to avoid the risk of an accident.

Lew said that Greece should present a convincing reform programme that would resolve its financial and structural problems. However, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund should be flexible enough to achieve the necessary consensus and avoid unpleasant consequences. "No-one should have a false sense of confidence that they know what the response to a crisis in Greece would be," said Jack Lew and described as wrong the opinion that a possible negative outcome of the negotiations for Greece would not spread outside of it.

"There is no doubt that the most serious and profound consequences of the inability to find a solution will affect Greece itself. However, it is in the absolute interest of the European and international economy to avoid such an accident," he said. Therefore, Greece will have to do what is necessary and so will its creditors along with it.

Asked whether he is optimistic that consensus will be reached, the US Treasury Secretary replied that he is trying to be. "Brinkmanship is a dangerous thing when it only takes one accident (ending up in a catastrophe - author’s note) ... Everyone has to treat the next deadline as if it is the last deadline to get this resolved. The risk of going from deadline to deadline only increases the risk of an accident," said Jack Lew.