Greece

Technical talks between Greece and its creditors aren't going well, officials said Wednesday, with each blaming the other for the snags in crucial negotiations, The Wall Street Journal reported. Teams from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund are getting very little information on the government’s finances and other key topics in Athens, two European officials said.

Athens has “annoyed” and “frustrated” its eurozone partners with combative negotiating tactics, said Belgium’s finance minister, who warned Greece that the single currency could safely ride out its exit, the Financial Times reported. Johan Van Overtveldt, an economist who took charge of the finance ministry in the eurozone’s sixth-largest economy in October, said the currency bloc had sufficient safeguards in place to endure a Greek departure, adding he believed other ministers shared this view.

Growing Greek antagonism toward Germany is coming at a bad time for Athens as it seeks a better debt deal with its European partners, the International New York Times reported. A demand on Tuesday night by the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, for wartime reparations from Germany cast a pall over negotiations for more rescue money for Athens that began in Brussels on Wednesday. Germany, the biggest European lender to Greece, immediately issued a cool response to Mr. Tsipras’s comments, which were made in an address to the Greek Parliament.

Greece’s cash-strapped Syriza government is pressing the country’s social security funds to hand over hundreds of millions of euros immediately to ensure that pensions and civil servants’ salaries are paid this month, the Financial Times reported. The unprecedented transfer of bank deposits, which is opposed by pension and welfare funds, follows an unexpectedly sharp fall in tax revenues in January that has left the finance ministry scrambling to raise funds to make a €1.2bn loan repayment to the International Monetary Fund due by March 20.

Talks between Greece and the institutions overseeing its bailout will start delving for the first time into technical detail here this week, eurozone finance ministers decided Monday, a sign that most of the work needed to secure desperately needed funding for Athens has yet to be done, The Wall Street Journal reported. “The real talks haven’t really started yet,” Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who presides over meetings of eurozone finance minister said after the meeting.

Despite the European accord last month to extend a financial lifeline to Greece, Athens is rapidly running out of cash, the International New York Times reported. So it is scrambling to find new, even radical ways to fill the shortfall — including a proposal to recruit citizens and tourists to spy on suspected tax evaders. Greece’s coffers may be empty before the end of this month, as tax receipts shrink and the economy shows signs of lapsing back into recession.

A political clash between Spain and Greece deepened after a top Spanish official said Greece is negotiating a third bailout with the European Union, a claim denied by a representative of the eurozone’s finance ministers, The Wall Street Journal reported. Talks on a new bailout would be a severe embarrassment for the Greek government, which is still balking at the terms of the current one.

Greece’s cash-strapped government suggested in the past week that it might default on some of the debt it owes the International Monetary Fund in March, which would make it the first advanced economy in the institution’s seven-decade history to fall into protracted arrears with the fund, The Wall Street Journal reported. It would also put the new Athens government on a par with a small group of mostly conflict-ravaged debtors that have stiffed the IMF—a list that includes Afghanistan’s Taliban, Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe and coup-stricken Haiti.

For years, Greece has been trying to attack corruption and tax evasion, from the smallest taverna owner to the nation’s most powerful oligarchs. Now, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is vowing to take far more action than previous administrations in cracking down, the International New York Times reported. He says his government, led by his leftist party, Syriza, will succeed because having never held power, it is not beholden to the entrenched interests that have long fought to maintain the status quo. But even Mr. Nikoloudis acknowledges that fixing Greece’s finances will not be easy.

Of all the challenges Greece has faced in recent years, prodding its citizens to pay their taxes has been one of the most difficult, The Wall Street Journal reported. At the end of 2014, Greeks owed their government about €76 billion ($86 billion) in unpaid taxes accrued over decades, though mostly since 2009. The government says most of that has been lost to insolvency and only €9 billion can be recovered.