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Greece Defers IMF Payment as Merkel Says Resolution Far Away (1) 2015-06-04 18:39:01.865 GMT
(Updates with market reaction in fifth paragraph.)
By Nikos Chrysoloras and Andrew Mayeda (Bloomberg) -- Greece became the first country to defer a payment to the International Monetary Fund since the 1980s as its game of brinkmanship with creditors goes down to the wire. With Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras getting ready to address parliament on Friday after receiving a list of creditors’ demands, the step underscores the state of the country’s shriveling finances. While international officials have reported some progress in recent days, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said “we’re still far from reaching a conclusion.” The current phase of Greece’s crisis is nearing its conclusion as the country runs out of money after four months of deadlock. Stocks and bonds have whipsawed this week amid a flurry of political activity starting with a late-night meeting in Berlin between European leaders and the IMF on Monday. Greece rejected the latest proposal from Greece’s international creditors, with the Finance Ministry saying the plan “can’t solve the riddle” and an agreement requires “immediate convergence of the institutions to more realistic” proposals. The euro fell 0.3 percent against the dollar to to $1.1241 at 2:19 p.m. New York time, after rising to $1.1318 following a report that Greece requested the IMF payment delay.
Parliament Address
Tsipras, who met European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels Wednesday, will address the Greek parliament at 6 p.m. local time on Friday, a Greek official said, with the euro region pressing for an agreement to be wrapped up by June 14. A European official said Greece will study the offer from its creditors and come back to them on Monday. Greece on Thursday told the IMF it would delay a debt payment of about $339 million (301 million euros) due Friday, submitting a request to the fund to bundle payments totaling about $1.7 billion due this month into one lump-sum payment. “The Greek authorities have informed the fund today that they plan to bundle the country’s four June payments into one, which is now due on June 30,” IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said in an e-mailed statement. “Under an Executive Board decision adopted in the late 1970s, country members can ask to bundle together multiple principal payments falling due in a calendar month.” Only one country, Zambia, has used the procedure to bundle payments, which happened in the mid-1980s, another IMF spokesman, William Murray, said last week.
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--With assistance from Rebecca Christie in Brussels, Birgit Jennen in Berlin, Corina Ruhe in Amsterdam and Eleni Chrepa and Christos Ziotis in Athens.
To contact the reporters on this story: Nikos Chrysoloras in Athens at +30-210-7419022 or nchrysoloras@bloomberg.net; Andrew Mayeda in Washington at +1-202-624-1947 or amayeda@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz at +1-202-624-1862 or cwellisz@bloomberg.net; Alan Crawford at +49-30-70010-6237 or acrawford6@bloomberg.net Scott Lanman, Mark Rohner