NEWS

Greece won’t present reform list at Riga, top Eurogroup official says

Greece will not present a list of economic reforms to eurozone finance ministers on Friday, a senior EU official said, adding the country should be able to stay solvent until June.

Thomas Wieser, who heads the Eurogroup Working Group that prepares the decisions for the ministers’ meetings, said Greece would in any case need to provide the list in the coming month.

“The clock is ticking. There won’t be a new list in Riga, but over the course of May it must finally be reached,” he told Austrian broadcaster ORF late on Tuesday.

“The liquidity situation in Greece is already a little tight, but it should be sufficient into June.”

Greece, which is running out of cash, told its eurozone partners in February that by the end of April it would agree with creditors on a comprehensive list of reforms to get the remaining 7.2 billion euros from its bailout.

Eurozone officials had expected the list to be presented on Friday to the ministers meeting in Riga, but such hopes have dimmed.

The leftist-led government in Athens remains locked in a stand-off with its creditors – the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund – over the reforms.

Failure to unlock more funds would trigger a default, and possibly Greece’s departure from the eurozone.

“It is my central belief that the negotiations with Greece can still be successfully finished,” Wieser added. [Reuters]

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