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

Thursday, 4 June 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

ATHENS (Reuters): Greece will not make a 5 June 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 totalling 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% to the European Central Bank.

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.

Tsipras, who has vowed not to surrender to more austerity, tried to pre-empt a take-it-or-leave-it offer by the creditors, sending what he called a comprehensive reform proposal to Brussels on Monday.

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. The agreement will either be compatible with Syriza’s policy pledges, the core, or there will not be a deal, he told Antenna TV.