Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande press Greece to come up with economic plan

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande pressed Athens to deliver an economic plan that its European partners can approve, as the sands are running out.

While talks between Greek officials and the country’s euro-area lenders in Brussels are “a start,” they “aren’t there yet,” Merkel said at a news conference with Hollande after they met in Berlin today, “There’s no time to lose.”

“As I already said several days ago, we’ve lost too much time,” Hollande commented.

As Bloomberg reports, the leaders of the euro area’s two biggest economies used the occasion of a joint Cabinet meeting in Berlin to demonstarte unity on Greece, saying they want to keep the country in Europe and insisting that Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras should come up with economic reform commitments as soon as possible.

Other euro zone states gave Greece until the end of June to present a plan without "counting the days", but Merkel said “the quicker Greece makes proposals, the quicker an agreement can be reached.”

When asked about Tsipras’s upcoming visit to Moscow for talks next week, she said she and Hollande “have also been to Moscow and we’re still members of the European Union and stand united.”