IMF withdraws negotiators in Greek debt meetings

Greece’s creditors piled pressure on cash-strapped Athens on Thursday as the IMF pulled its team out of talks and the EU warned Athens to stop gambling with the possibility of default and a messy exit from the eurozone. The International Monetary Fund said an agreement remained far-off after a five-month stalemate with Greece’s anti-austerity government, which faces being unable to pay huge debts at the end of the month. Meanwhile, eleventh-hour talks in Brussels between Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker broke up without reaching a deal on reforms in exchange for bailout cash.

There are still major differences between us in most key areas. There has been no progress in narrowing these differences recently. Thus we are well away from an agreement.

IMF spokesman Gerry Rice

The IMF is the most hardline of Greece’s three bailout monitors - the others being the European Commission and European Central Bank. Without fresh external funding when the bailout expires on June 30, cash-strapped Greece is set to default on its debts, meaning it could crash out of the eurozone despite benefitting from two international bailouts since 2010. Late-night talks between Tsipras, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande on Wednesday also ended without a deal, producing only a pledge to “intensify” their efforts. Tsipras, whose radical-left Syriza party won elections in January with a promise to end five years of austerity, has refused to back down on the reforms demanded by Greece’s creditors.

IMF Greece Europe