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Greece, creditors to hold more talks on Athens’ bailout

A man passes by graffiti denouncing Greece’s troika of international lenders in central Athens, March 10, 2015. (© AFP)

Officials from Greece are set to meet with the cash-strapped country’s international creditors to discuss Athens’ bailout program and the reforms it has to implement to receive the funds.

European Commission spokeswoman, Mina Andreeva, told a press conference on Friday that the Brussels group, which consists of Greece, the European Union (EU), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), plus the European Stability Mechanism, “is meeting this weekend as of tomorrow afternoon.”

An unnamed source said the two sides would meet in the French capital city of Paris instead of Brussels over “logistical reasons,” and that the meeting is “expected to last more than a day.”

The talks have hardly made any progress although Greece is in dire need of money to pay its creditors, amid risks of a default and Athens’ potential exit from the eurozone.

“We are trying to keep the process moving,” said the source, attributing the lack of progress in the talks to a lack of “enough technical work.”

“The process lacks numbers, detailed tables,” the source noted, adding that discussion are still “far from talking about a bailout.”

Greece wants the last tranche of its bailout, worth EUR 7.2 billion (USD 7.8 billion), to be unlocked and repay its debts to the IMF and the ECB. However, it has so far refrained from accepting the harsh reform conditions that its creditors seek to have imposed in return for the funds.

Athens received two bailouts in 2010 and 2012 worth a total of EUR 240 billion (USD 272 billion) from the so-called troika of international lenders following Greeces 2009 economic crisis.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (© AFP)

The government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, whose leftist Syriza Party stormed to victory in January 25 elections, wants the IMF, the EU and the ECB to alleviate the austerity measures so that Athens could concentrate on growth.

During his electoral campaign, Tsipras vowed to reconsider the austerity measures, which have caused mounting dissatisfaction in the country.

MR/HJL/SS


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