Greece urges creditors to compromise as IMF payment date nears

Athens

GREECE has urged the country's creditors to compromise on demands to break an impasse over the release of funds for its cash-strapped economy, as a deadline looms for payments due next month to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

A day after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said Greek society can't absorb any more austerity measures, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said his government has met the euro-area and IMF three-quarters of the way, and that it's up to creditors to cover the remainder.

"Greece has made enormous strides reaching a deal, it is now up to the institutions to do their bit," Mr Varoufakis said on Sunday on BBC TV. "It is not in their interests as our creditors that the cow that produces the milk should be beaten into submission to the extent that the milk will not be enough for them to get their money back."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande last week gave Mr Tsipras until the end of May to reach a deal on its aid programme, including economic policy changes demanded by Greece's creditors.

As time runs short, the Greek government has to pay monthly salaries and pensions by May 29 and repay about 300 million euros (S$440 million) to the IMF a week later.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, meanwhile, signalled there isn't much wiggle room after Mr Tsipras's government committed to policy changes in return for aid in a euro-area accord on Feb 20.

"That is the condition for completing the current programme," Mr Schaeuble said in a radio interview aired on Sunday. "The problems are rooted in Greece. And now, Greece does have to fulfil its commitments."

Some members of Mr Tsipras's Syriza party advocate defaulting on loans rather than backing down from the anti-austerity policies that swept it to power in January, even if that leads the country out of the euro.

Greece doesn't have the money, and won't pay what it owes the IMF in June, Interior Minister Nikos Voutsis said in an interview on Sunday. Spiegel Online on April 1 cited Mr Voutsis as saying Greece should delay an April 9 payment to the Fund, which was made.

"We've done remarkably well for an economy that doesn't have access to the money markets to meet our obligations," Mr Varoufakis said. "At some point, we will not be able to do it."

A Greek exit from the euro is just a matter of time and wouldn't lead to the break-up of the monetary union, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said in an interview published on Saturday. An exit could make the euro stronger, billionaire investor Warren Buffett said in an interview in the Euro-am-Sonntag newspaper. BLOOMBERG