Greece's creditors back in Athens this week

[ATHENS] Greece and its international creditors are due this week to resume talks in Athens over reforms demanded from the debt-ridden government in exchange for bailout funds, the finance ministry said Monday.

The European Commission's Declan Costello, the European Central Bank's Rasmus Rueffer, Nicola Giammarioli from the European Stability Mechanism and Delia Velculescu of the International Monetary Fund will travel to Athens as mission chiefs for the creditor organisations.

Starting Tuesday, they are expected to meet Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and other Greek officials, local media said.

It will be the team's first visit to Greece since radical left Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras returned to power after a snap vote on September 20.

The negotiators were in Athens in late July, after Greece agreed with its creditors on a new loan in exchange for painful economic reforms.

Greece's parliament has since adopted some of the reforms - most recently a new tax hike and pension cuts.

Under the July deal, Athens agreed to more public spending cuts in return for a three-year, 86 billion euro (S$134.7 billion) EU bailout - its third since 2010 - which prevented it crashing out of the eurozone.

Short of cash, Greece was given in August a first tranche of 13 billion euros to help it meet payments owed to the ECB and the IMF.

AFP