FILE PHOTO: A butcher waits for clients inside the main meat market of Athens, Greece, February 17, 2017 (REUTERS / Alkis Konstantinidis)
Brussels: Greece faced pressure yesterday to accept a bailout deal with no new debt relief so that it can meet huge repayments and avert a fresh crisis this summer.
After months of bickering, Greece's eurozone creditors and the International Monetary Fund are on the verge of breaking a deadlock when they meet in Luxembourg on today.
"On Thursday (today), we will manage to achieve that," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, the eurozone's most influential official, told Bloomberg news agency.
But Athens insisted it would veto the deal, furious that the disbursement of the latest tranche of its €86bn bailout agreed in 2015 could come without long-hoped-for firm debt relief commitments.
"We are far from finding a solution at the Eurogroup, given that Germany has not made any step," a Greek government source told AFP.
Bitter disagreement between Germany and the IMF has held up the payout of a fresh tranche for Athens to meet seven billion euros of debt repayments due in July.
Berlin, Greece's harshest critic, has long resisted any fresh commitment to debt relief for Athens, saying it must trim its budget and reform.
