ATHENS (Sputnik) — The Greek government requested the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to postpone its $1.7-billion loan repayment tranche until November, Greek Deputy Prime Minister Yannis Dragasakis said Tuesday.
Dragasakis outlined two other requests made by Greek institutions to their European and international counterparts, including a new two-year agreement with the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and expanding financing under the European Central Bank's (ECB) Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) program.
"We sent a request to the IMF to postpone the payment, which we are obliged to carry out, to November. We will have a chance to pay then," Dragasakis said on Greek ERT television.
Athens' latest proposals are on the negotiating table with the subjects of labor relations and pensions unchanged, the deputy Greek leader said. He added that international creditors refuse to acknowledge the fact that the Greek economy is entering its sixth year in crisis, leading to a 10-percent drop in the GDP.
Also on Tuesday, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said the country would not make its $1.7-billion debt repayment to the IMF, which Athens was due to transfer by the end of the day. Germany's Bild cited an unnamed Greek government source as saying the deferment request did not constitute Athens was backing out from its commitments, but a "mere shift."
The current bailout program expires at midnight central European time, with Greece risking to default on its debt and unable to draw from the program's coffers in the future.
Tsipras nonetheless declared a nationwide plebiscite on Sunday for the Greek public to decide whether to accept or reject the latest EU-ECB-IMF cash-for-reforms and austerity proposal.
