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Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras speaking in the plenary hall at the European Parliament today. Photograph: Michele Tantussi/Getty Images

Greece is under intense pressure to table a last-chance blueprint for radical economic reform, tax increases and spending cuts on Thursday in order to secure a future in the euro and stave off financial collapse, writes our Europe editor Ian Traynor.



The reform proposals are to be sent to Greece’s creditors with negotiations at the critical stage. The embattled Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, accused his eurozone creditors on Wednesday of exploiting his country as an “austerity laboratory” for the past five years while formally asking Europe for three more years of rescue funds.

The countdown to Greece’s financial collapse shifted into its gravest phase after European leaders set Sunday as the deadline by which Tsipras has to capitulate to their menu of cuts, tax rises and fundamental reforms of the Greek economy in return for bailout money. Otherwise, EU leaders said, Greece will be cut off from the eurozone, triggering banking chaos, insolvency, and probable exit from the single currency.



With the five-year crisis entering a climactic five days, much will hinge on the details of the reforms that Athens is to send to the troika of bailout supervisors on Thursday. The European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European commission are to receive the details by midnight on Thursday, giving them 48 hours to examine them, negotiate, and reach a verdict before another European summit on Sunday either blesses the proposed deal or focuses on plans for coping with a new Greek currency and how to mitigate the expected post-euro humanitarian crisis in Greece.

Tsipras sounded characteristically defiant in his first big speech – to the European parliament in Strasbourg – outside Greece in almost six months in office. He declared that justice was above the law, repeated that his victory in securing a rejection of EU austerity in a snap referendum on Sunday did not mean Greeks wanted to quit the euro.

The days of treating Greece as an “austerity laboratory” were over, he vowed. “The experiment was not a success”....

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