Greece creditors in Athens to negotiate a new bailout – Boursorama

IMF chief Christine Lagarde and Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos July 12, 2015 in Brussels (AFP / File / Thierry Charlier)

“The teams arrive in Athens tomorrow, and the meetings will begin immediately,” told AFP a Commission spokesman.

However, he did not specify if those teams would be initially composed solely of experts, or would also include the heads of delegations of the four relevant institutions, Commission, European Central Bank, the European Stability Mechanism and International Monetary Fund.

An IMF spokesman told AFP however that the institution would send Monday that a “technical team”, a term which implies that its Chief mission to Greece would not be immediately associated with these discussions.

“A technical team will start working on Monday in Athens to take stock of recent developments in the situation,” said in an email this portfolio speech, without giving more details.

A source of the Greek Ministry of Finance had said on Saturday that the heads of missions that will arrive by Thursday to Tuesday also laying the early discussions.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, July 24, 2015 in Athens (AFP / LOUISA GOULIAMAKI)

The blur has continued to soar in recent days on the date of arrival of the mission, amid strong resistance from the Greek radical left government to accept a reversal of the same model of visits before he took office in January by the representatives of creditors, so collectively referred troika name.

“The delay of heads of mission is due to technical reasons, not for political or diplomatic reasons,” the source said Saturday the Greek Ministry.

The aim of the discussions is to be finalized by August 20 to a third loan to Greece, running over three years to more than 82 billion euros. The principle was agreed on July 13 between the leaders of countries in the euro zone after marathon negotiations to prevent Greece being pushed out of the eurozone.

Athens and Brussels want this negotiation lead by “the second half of August.” Greece, whose coffers are empty, must pay 3.19 billion euros to the ECB on August 20, then 1.5 billion to the IMF in September.

A man walks past a display with purses filled imitations of euro banknotes, July 25, 2015 in Athens (AFP / ANGELOS TZORTZINIS)

The return to Athens representatives of creditor institutions, who lent the country some 240 billion since 2010, was imposed on Greece under the agreement of 13 July.

The government of Alexis Tsipras also had to commit to a series of budget cuts and reforms extending austerity with which he had promised to end, and on the details and timing of which shall bear the negotiations.

Copyright © 2015 AFP. All rights of reproduction and distribution reserved.

All information displayed on this section (dispatches, photographs, logos) is protected by intellectual property rights owned by AFP. Therefore, none of this information may be reproduced, modified, transmitted, redistributed, translated, sold, exploited commercially or used in any way whatsoever without the prior written consent of AFP. AFP shall not be held liable for delays, errors, omissions, which may not be excluded or the consequences of the actions or transactions made on the basis of this information.