Greek PM rejects ‘absurd’ terms offered by int’l lenders

PanARMENIAN.Net - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Friday, June 5, spurned "absurd" terms of proposed aid from lenders and delayed a debt payment to the International Monetary Fund, prolonging an impasse that threatens to push Greece into default and out of the euro zone, Reuters reports.

In a defiant speech aimed at winning parliament's backing for his rejection of the austerity-for-aid package, Tsipras balanced indignation with confidence that a deal was "closer than ever before" to keep his country inside the currency bloc.

"The Greek government cannot consent to absurd proposals," Tsipras told parliament. "I want to believe that this proposal was a bad moment for Europe or at the very least a bad negotiating trick and will soon be withdrawn by the masterminds themselves," he said, according to Reuters.

He was speaking after Athens delayed a 300 million euro payment due to the IMF on Friday, a highly unusual step that rattled financial markets and sent Greek stocks .ATF down 5 percent but that does not yet signal a formal default.

Opinion polls published on Friday show around three out of four Greeks want to remain in the euro zone, while more want their government to accept the offer from European and IMF creditors than want it to be rejected.

But the lenders' proposal crosses many of Tsipras's 'red lines,' including hiking taxes, privatizing strategic assets and cutting benefits for poor pensioners.

Tsipras instead called on lenders to accept Greece's proposal sent this week that would reverse labor and pension reforms, calling it the only "realistic" proposal on the table. He also refused to sign a bailout agreement or deal that does not include the debt relief he has long demanded.

Tsipras said he was shocked that after five year of austerity the lenders would make demands like abolishing a small benefit for low-income pensioners and imposing a 10 percentage point jump in electricity taxes.

His government says overly harsh austerity policies imposed by lenders in bailout packages have deepened one of the worst depressions in modern times.

On Friday the government decided to bundle together some 1.6 billion euros it is scheduled to pay the IMF in June into a single payment at the end of the month, skipping a 300 million euro payment due on Friday.

It was the first time in five years of crisis that Greece has postponed a repayment on its 240 billion euro bailouts from euro zone governments, the European Central Bank and the IMF.

The IMF said the maneuver was unorthodox but permissible.