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Yannis Stournaras, finance minister, said the governing coalition would have to accelerate reforms before asking for modifications in a €174 billion programme agreed in February with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
“The programme is off-track and we can’t ask for anything from our creditors before we get it back on course”, Mr Stournaras said. Greece’s change of tack came as EU and IMF officials visiting Athens this week echoed a statement by Christine Lagarde, the IMF managing director, in a television interview that she was “not in negotiations or re-negotiations mood” on the Greek bailout.
Antonis Samaras, the centre-right prime minister, avoided any mention of a timetable change during his first meeting on Thursday since taking office with officials from the troika.
The troika made it clear that even though economic arguments could perhaps be made for extending the programme, Greece would then need extra bailout funding, which eurozone Member States could refuse to provide given the country’s lack of progress to date. Greece has missed deadlines for key structural reforms – including an overhaul of the tax administration aimed at reducing high annual levels of tax evasion, estimated at about 5 per cent of national output – because of two general elections in the past two months. This year’s budget is already off-track despite improvements in controlling spending, as revenues shrank amid a collection slowdown during the election campaign and a deeper-than-forecast recession.
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