Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras expressed his fears that Greece will be facing a liquidity problem in the end of the current month, according to the Sunday issue of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Greeks should be prepared for the possibility that state salaries will not be paid at the end of March, according to the newspaper.
FAZ clarifies that the SYRIZA leader mentioned his worries when he spoke to European Parliament president Martin Schulz, during their meeting in Brussels on Friday.
Mr. Tsipras “is in urgent need of money”, said Schulz to the newspaper. “As such he will need to convince the Eurogroup and the ECB on his will to implement reforms, next week”.
Alexis Tsipras seems to have asked the ECB to raise the short-term Greek T-bill issuance number “by two to three billion euros”
Martin Schulz and EC President Jean-Claude Juncker told Tsipras to direct a government mission to Europe in order to commit to reforms and improve tax income.
Greece is faced with crucial deadlines in March as far as its repayments towards the IMF are concerned.
The Greek government which repaid a tranche of 336 million euros is also called to deposit another 896 million euros to the IMF by the end of the month.
Greece’s capability to refinance is limited, since it cannot raise liquidity from the markets by issuing medium and long-term T-bills since tranche disbursement by the lenders amounting to 7 billion has been postponed by said lenders, who require Greece to implement reforms as a prerequisite.
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