Greece

Greece has vowed to honour heavy debt repayments over the coming weeks but says it is counting on international creditors to release billions of euros in rescue funds before the end of the month as crisis talks between the two sides grind on, The Guardian reported. But as the European commission described discussions over the long weekend as constructive, albeit with more work to be done, one Greek minister criticised the International Monetary Fund’s “extreme” demands for austerity cuts.

Five years into the biggest bailout of a debtor in history, Greece is closer to the brink than ever, with time running out to avert a bankruptcy that could destabilize not only the eurozone, but the global economy as well, The Wall Street Journal reported. When Europe and the International Monetary Fund first agreed to bail Greece out on May 2, 2010, the plan was to return Greece to growth and bond markets within three years. Instead, after half a decade and €245 billion ($274 billion) in promised loans, the two sides have reached an impasse.

Greece and its euro-area partners are stepping up talks in a bid to break an impasse over bailout aid as early as next week, even as the country’s government sent conflicting signals over its willingness to agree on long-stalled reforms, Bloomberg News reported. With Greece facing a cash crunch as early as next week, both sides in a meeting of euro-area officials agreed to pursue intensive negotiations beginning on Thursday with the target of a preliminary deal by May 3, according to two people with knowledge of the talks.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece said on Tuesday that he might resort to calling a public referendum on any deal with the country’s international creditors if the package seems to go beyond the political mandate that brought his leftist government into power, the International New York Times reported. The statement came a day after Mr. Tsipras overhauled his negotiating team in an effort to accelerate debt talks and unlock crucial rescue funding.

Ever since the leftist-led Greek government came to power in late January, the avatar of the country’s austerity-weary public has been its outspoken, motorcycle-riding renegade finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, the International New York Times reported. On Monday, seeming to acknowledge that the rest of the eurozone has grown weary with the Varoufakis approach to debt negotiation, the Athens government announced a shake-up of the team trying to work out a plan with international creditors before the country runs out of money. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras took pains to say that Mr.

UBS's chairman said a default by Greece is seen by the International Monetary Fund as "systemically controllable" and he believed it would have a negligible impact on the Swiss bank itself, according to a newspaper interview published on Saturday. Athens is lurching closer to bankruptcy, with its next big test on May 12, when it is due to pay 750 million euros to the IMF. Euro zone finance ministers told Greece on Friday that its leftist government would get no more aid until it agreed a complete economic reform plan.

It’s still possible that Greece can remain in the eurozone—though that is no longer the base case for many policy makers, The Wall Street Journal reported. At the very least, most fear the situation is going to get much, worse before it gets any better. No one now expects a deal to unlock Greek bailout funding at this week’s meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Riga—originally set as the final deadline for a deal. The new final, final deadline is now said to be a summit on May 11.

Greece’s government issued a decree Monday requiring public bodies such as state-owned companies and public pension funds to transfer their cash reserves to the central bank as the country’s cash reserves continue to dry up, The Wall Street Journal reported. The decree, published in the government gazette late Monday, came as no surprise, the government having telegraphed the move last week. But it still represents evidence of an escalating cash squeeze amid renewed concerns of Greek default.

By the standards of his frenzied schedule here last week, the meeting on Friday between Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, and Lee C. Buchheit, the dean of international debt lawyers, was a quiet one, the International New York Times reported. There was none of the media scrum that had followed Mr. Varoufakis around town during the semiannual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, as he paid calls on the I.M.F. chief, Christine Lagarde; the head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi; the United States Treasury secretary, Jacob J.

Greek officials have made an informal approach to the International Monetary Fund to delay repayments of loans to the international lender, highlighting the parlous state of Greek finances, but were told that no rescheduling was possible, the Financial Times reported. According to officials briefed on the talks by both sides, Athens was persuaded not to make a specific request for a delay to the Fund, which is owed almost €1bn in two separate payments due in May.