4/4/2015
Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis will meet IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde in Washington on Sunday to discuss a set of planned reforms that Athens hopes will unlock much-needed bailout funds.
The unexpected meeting would be “an informal discussion of Greece’s reform plan”, the finance ministry said in a statement. Varoufakis will meet US Treasury officials on Monday, a Greek government official said.
Greece is fast running out of cash and its euro zone and International Monetary Fund lenders have frozen bailout aid until the leftist-led government reaches agreement on a package of reforms.
Talks with lenders have been have been tense and slow-moving. Greek officials suggested this week that the government would prioritise spending on wages and pensions over meeting the conditions necessary to unblock a roughly €450m loan tranche to the IMF due on April 9, making markets nervous and reviving fears of a Greek default.
Athens denied that was its stance, with government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis saying there was “no chance that Greece will not meet its obligations to the IMF” and assuring that the reforms would be further specified.
Greece has not received bailout funds since August last year and has resorted to measures such as borrowing from state entities via repo transactions to tide it over.
After a first set of planned measures failed to impress lenders, the government sent a more detailed list to institutions representing the creditors — the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF — on Wednesday.
But the list arrived too late to be discussed by eurozone deputy finance ministers, who can decide whether to grant new loans to Greece, at a teleconference on Wednesday afternoon.
EU officials have said that progress had been made in talks but more work was needed for a deal to be reached.
Athens has its hopes set on another meeting of eurozone deputy finance ministers on the afternoon of April 8 and on the morning of April 9.
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