Wednesday, 3 June 2015

Greece will not pay IMF on Friday without prospect of a deal: lawmaker


Greece will not make a June 5 repayment to the International Monetary Fund if there is no prospect of an aid-for-reforms deal with its international creditors soon, the spokesman for the ruling Syriza party's lawmakers said on Wednesday.The payment of 300 million euros ($335 million) is the first of four this month totaling 1.6 billion euros from a country that depends on foreign aid to stay afloat.
Greece owes a total of about 320 billion euros, of which about 65 percent to euro zone governments and the IMF, and about 8.7 percent to the European Central Bank.
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On Tuesday, Greece's creditors drafted the broad outlines of an agreement to put to the leftist government in Athens in a bid to conclude four months of negotiations and release aid before the country runs out of money.
"If there is no prospect of a deal by Friday or Monday, I don't know by when exactly, we will not pay," Nikos Filis told Mega TV.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras heads to Brussels on Wednesday to meet European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
A Syriza European Parliament lawmaker said the government's 47-page proposal would be a good basis for discussion at a meeting of euro zone deputy finance ministers in the so-called EuroWorking Group which would convene on Wednesday.
"If the lenders show the same realism that the Greek government and the Greek Prime Minister is showing, then we can have a deal in principle by Friday or before Friday," Dimitris Papadimoulis told Antenna TV.
He said this could turn into a comprehensive deal next week.
"But right now there is no deal, there is convergence," he said.
Deputy social security minister Dimitris Stratoulis said a deal with lenders would have to respect the government's commitments.

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