Media reports on Thursday stated that eurozone deputy finance ministers gave the leftist Greek government “six working days” to come up with a revised set of reforms in order to receive much-needed bailout funds, a necessary prerequisite before an EZ meeting on April 24.

Reuters quoteed a report in the Athens daily “Kathimerini” in relaying the news.

According to other reports, representatives of Greece and the EZ creditors also agreed that negotiations over technical issues will be conducted “chapter by chapter”, in meetings held in both Athens and at the “Brussels Group” setting.
The prospect essentially aims for the partial disbursement of funds based on the closing of individual chapters and without an overall deal.

Representatives of the “Institutions” — as the former EC-ECB-IMF “Troika” was redubbed — have already returned to Athens. Nevertheless, it was not clear if the Greek finance ministry’s general secretary, Nikos Theoharakis, presented new proposals a day earlier worth one billion euros – a cache of measures processed by the government’s economic team over the previous week.

According to other sources, institutional creditors’ representatives were displeased with the quality of the working papers presented by the Greek finance ministry as well as the often “theoretical” nature of Athens’ material to date.

According to Kathimerini, the Euroworking Group wants specific proposals on fiscal issues, pension fund reforms, labor market reforms and privatizations.

According to Reuters, “Athens has submitted a 26-page reform list but EU/IMF negotiators say it is too optimistic on revenue projections and omits the key issues of pensions and labor markets, which are the most sensitive for (Alexis) Tsipras’ leftist Syriza party.”

However, in a later dispatch, Greece’s state-run news agency quotes “community sources” as saying there was no ultimatum issued to the Greek side. The same “sources” said much awaits to be done on the technical level in order to achieve an agreement at the April 24 Eurogroup meeting.