IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde reportedly reiterated the Fund’s position vis-à-vis the Greek program to Greece’s finance minister on Saturday, again pointing to the need for reforms to be implemented and for the country’s external debt to sustainable, necessary preconditions on order for the IMF to rejoin Greece’s funding.
She also made it clear that the Fund’s rules governing its lenders are difficult to change.
Later, finance ministry officials disclosed to reporters that creditors’ have signed-off on Athens’ compliance with implementing more than a dozen “prior actions” in order to free up 2.8 billion euros in a sub-tranche of bailout loans pending from the first review of the Greek program in the spring.
The optimism on the Greek side is that forthcoming EWG meeting and a higher-level Eurogroup meeting will officially approve the disbursement of the bailout tranche ahead of Oct. 17, when creditors’ representatives return to Athens for talks on a second review of the current Greek program (third bailout).
Meanwhile, sources close to the Greek delegation referred to a “unachievable triangle” in describing German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble’s insistence on success of the Greek program, with the IMF participating as a lender, but with Germany’s standing refusal to discuss debt relie
