The International Monetary Fund ruled out allowing Greece to delay scheduled debt repayments, while the European Commission voiced dissatisfaction Thursday over talks with Athens to solve Greek financial woes, according to dpa. IMF chief Christine Lagarde said that a delay in Greek payments would constitute "additional financing" to Athens. A delay would be "clearly not a course of action that would ... be recommendable" to the IMF's board, she said. "We have never had an advanced economy ask for payment delays," Lagarde said. Cash-strapped Greece and its international creditors are struggling to strike a deal on new economic reforms, which are needed to unblock 7.2 billion euros (7.7 billion dollars) in aid remaining from the current bailout. Fears are rife that Athens could soon run out of money. Greece owes payments in the coming weeks to bondholders and other creditors, including 950 million euros due in May to the IMF. A Greek payment last week was made on the last day of the long-scheduled deadline. Greece and its international creditors - which include the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF - have been wrangling over the country's bailout terms since left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras took office in January on a promise to end bailout-associated austerity. Lagarde met later Thursday in Washington with Greek Finance Minister Yannis Varoufakis. The Financial Times reported Thursday that Athens asked the IMF to inform it about the procedure if a payment to the fund is missed. In an email, Varoufakis said the report "was a lie." In an appearance Thursday at a Washington think tank, he called it "absurd" that the Greek government is currently required by the bailout terms to maintain large budget surpluses, with the country's economy still in the early stages of recovering from several years of sharp contraction. Varoufakis argued that demands to slash already small Greek pensions constitute "a cutback, but I don't see any serious reform." Greece is seeking to forge an agreement with its "partners" by the end of June for a handful of large reforms "that will create a sustainable Greek economy so that we can cease having these conversations," he said. The Greek government is willing to "compromise, compromise, compromise without being compromised," Varoufakis said. A week before eurozone finance ministers are due to tackle the Greek crisis, the European Commission said that progress was lacking. "We continue to work with the other institutions and the Greek authorities. Talks are ongoing. However, at this stage, we are not satisfied with the level of progress made so far," said Margaritis Schinas, spokesman for the European Union's executive. He said that "work needs to intensify" before an April 24 meeting of the Eurogroup. For the finance ministers' gathering in Riga "to be able to take stock of the situation, we need more progress than we're actually having," Schinas said. The Eurogroup needs to approve any further bailout disbursements. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble is among those who no longer expect a breakthrough at the Riga talks. "I don't expect that we will get a solution ... in the next weeks," he said at a think tank event Wednesday in New York. The Greek government has refused to publicly comment on the state of its public finances, but the Standard & Poor's credit rating agency said Wednesday that it expects time to run out for the bailout disbursement if a deal is not struck "before the middle of May." The next meeting of the Eurogroup after Riga is scheduled for May 11. The Greek problems are on the agenda at twice yearly meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which open Friday in Washington. "The main players involved in this subject at the political level are all in Washington for the spring IMF meetings, so we still hope that this interaction at all levels will produce the progress that we would like to see," Schinas said. Schaeuble complained about the new Greek government having "destroyed" Greece's recent economic achievements. "It's a tragedy," he said, according to a transcript of his comments. "The key is in Greece, in essence. They have to find a solution, not to say: '... We need more money, but we will not do more reforms'."
