The pension and tax reforms are demanded by Athens' Eurozone creditors to unlock the next tranche of the third bailout deal agreed in August 2015, which is worth up to €86 billion ($98 billion) in financial assistance to Greece up to 2018.
In return, Eurozone creditors are demanding that Athens reform its pension system, labor and product markets and public sector, and put an EU-supervised program in place to privatize its public assets.
The Eurozone finance ministers known as the Eurogroup met on Monday to review Greece's reforms, and set a new deadline of May 24 reach a deal to approve the transfer of a €5 billion instalment of bailout funds, which Greece needs to pay €3.5 billion in debt repayments in July.
Rather than going through the pain of cuts, which have already roused demonstrations from trade unions, Tuan Manders, leader of the Dutch Libertarian Party, told RT that he thinks Athens would be better off defaulting on its debt.
"Default would be a great solution," Manders said.
"It would mean that the flow of money for bankrupt Athens would end at last. That would be better not only for the taxpayers of those countries which are paying into Greece's accounts, but in the long term the Greeks themselves will benefit from it," Manders recommended.
Former Greek diplomat Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos said that the debt should be restructured, as French Foreign Minister Michel Sapin has recommended, or even completely written off.
"The initial memorandum was adopted with the aim of getting rid of Greek debt, which was 120 percent of GDP at that time. Now it has reached 300 percent. This program has become a complete fiasco, and Greece, of course, is completely unable to repay that kind of debt," Chrysanthopoulos said.
"In order for the country to survive, it has to be restructured, or even better, written off completely."
According to the Financial Times, IMF chief Christine Lagarde told the Eurogroup that Greece requires less austerity in order to meet its creditors' demands, and in particular argued that the EU's target for Greece to achieve a primary surplus of 3.5 percent of GDP by 2018 is unrealistic and should be reduced to 1.5 percent.
