Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis told journalists that a deal to unlock bailout aid can be reached by Jube 5.
Greece will make the next payment to the IMF on June 5 as the country will have reached an agreement with its creditors by then, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said on Tuesday.
In the last few days, there have been divergent comments from senior government officials on whether Athens will be able to meet its next tranche of €300 million due June 5. Greece is scheduled to repay a total of €1.6 billion to the IMF over the period June 5-19.
“Greece needs a deal as soon as possible so it can service its IMF debts” government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis told reporters on Monday. “To the extent that we are in a position to pay our obligations, we will pay our obligations,” he said, adding: “It's the government's responsibility to be in a position to pay its obligations.”
The country’s interior minister, Nikos Voutsis, said Sunday that payments to the IMF due in June can’t be made, and won’t be made if a deal isn’t reached by June 5. Voutsis said Athens needed to strike a deal with its European partners within the next couple of weeks or it would default on repayments to the International Monetary Fund that form part of its €240 billion rescue package.
The Prime minster's office has excluded the possibility to bundle multiple principal payments into a lump payment.
A new round of negotiations at the Brussels Group is scheduled to begin on Tuesday. The meetings are expected to continue the whole week in a bid to end the impasse in the negotiations with the country's creditors and unlock a much needed further amount of outstanding loans.
Asked by journalists if Greece would repay the loan next week, Varoufakis said: “Of course, because there will be a deal by June 5.”