Eurozone Ministers: No reform deadline for Greece

Eurozone finance ministers will not set any deadline for Greece to come up with reforms to get more funding because such time limits lead to brinkmanship in negotiations, a senior eurozone official said yesterday.

Greece, which is quickly running out of cash, pledged to its eurozone partners in February that, by the end of April, it would agree with creditors on a comprehensive list of reforms to receive €7.2bn remaining from its bailout.

Eurozone officials had expected the list to be presented to the bloc’s finance ministers this Friday in Riga. This would allow for a faster disbursement of cash to Athens, helping the debt-laden country avoid default on loan repayments on May 12.

However, no package will be ready by then and it is also unlikely it will be ready by the end of the month. This is mainly because in the past weeks Greece has not been providing the creditors with the financial data they seek or saying clearly what reforms it plans.

Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras will meet German chancellor Angela Merkel at a EU summit on migration tomorrow and the two are expected to discuss the funding crisis.

Speaking in Vienna, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker urged Greece to step up efforts to strike a deal with its lenders, warning that talks were not advanced enough to find a quick solution. A senior eurozone official, involved in the talks, said there had been some improvement in negotiations very recently, but not enough for a deal.

“There is a clear pick up in activity, there is a clear pick up in engagement, but we are a significant way away from a signal that a result is in sight,” said the eurozone official.

“[However,] the use of deadlines, which leads to certain brinkmanship and unnecessary excitement, will not be done again.”

In a sign of how extreme Greece’s financial constraints have become, Athens on Monday ordered state entities, ranging from municipalities to a fund meant for future generations, to park idle cash at the central bank. The official said such a step would help Greece’s liquidity.

“With the decree that was passed yesterday the situation, within the limits that there are, is well manageable,” he said.

However, reaching an agreement with creditors on a comprehensive package of reforms by the end of April was unlikely, despite one more week left after the Riga meeting.

“If you want to present some kind of comprehensive agreement to the authorities and the institutions, analyse it, send it to the Euro Working Group to work on it, which then filters out the political questions for the Eurogroup to debate, it will be extremely difficult to keep the deadline of April 30,” he said.