Greece’s creditors ‘must get their act together’

TAX ISSUES AND LABOUR RIGHTS DOMINANT ISSUES AS NEGOTIATIONS RESUME

Greece’s outspoken Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis yesterday urged the country’s international creditors to “get their act together” and help cobble together a new loan deal before the struggling nation’s money runs out.

The call came amid the Greek government’s inability to agree with its creditors — the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank — on reforms that would unlock some 7.2 billion euros (Dh28.8 billion) in promised bailout funds.

“It’s about time the institutions, in particular the IMF, get their act together, and come to an agreement with us,” Varoufakis told CNN.

The talks resumed yesterday, with the two sides haggling over tax issues, social insurance, labour rights and the size of Greece’s budget surplus. The government hopes to secure an agreement by early June at the latest. The European Union’s economic affairs commissioner Pierre Moscovici agreed that the discussions had to “speed up.”

“We are aware of the liquidity problems in Greece and this is why it’s so important now that negotiations that take place in Brussels speed up,” he said on the sidelines of a conference in Dublin.

“We want that agreement, we want it fast, we are working on it hard,” he said.

Sources in Athens with knowledge of the issue said the Greek state would face particular difficulty to keep up payments towards the end of the June. But Varoufakis yesterday denied Greece is about to run out of money.

Reuters Street art A man makes his way past a graffiti artwork titled Death of euros made by French street artist Goin in Athens.