Greek PM Alexis Tsipras appeared confident on Friday that his radical leftist government will come close to clinching a deal with institutional creditors over the weekend and make a €750m repayment to the IMF next week.

The stakes are now of Olympian stature for the three-month-old government in Athens, as it seeks to avoid the spectre of default, followed by a dreaded Grexit and political collapse.

Four obstacles remain, according to government sources, namely, VAT rates, pension reform (cuts), labour relations (allowing mass layoffs) and the spectre of a “gap” in the 2015 budget. Nevertheless, the same sources said they were “hopeful” that progress over the past few days will continue and culminate in a “postive statement” on Monday at the Eurogroup.

The term “positive statement” was heard throughout Friday in Athens, given that the leftist government hopes a nod towards a pending deal by Eurozone ministers will given ECB president Mario Draghi the opportunity to loosen another two billion euros or so in liquidity for Greece.

According to the Guardian on Friday, the SYRIZA government is “running on fumes”, yet senior EU officials stated there is no prospect of a deal releasing bailout money when Eurozone ministers meet on Monday in Brussels.

“I am confident that we will soon have a happy ending and that despite the difficulties … we will carry out the agreement, which will be concluded soon in Europe,” was the (double meaning) quote given by the Guardian. He added that his government was “doing whatever it should in order to reach … an honest and mutually beneficial agreement with our partners”.
Meanwhile, the WSJ reports that a 36-page “blueprint” for Greek growth distributed by Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis merely confused his peers.
According to WSJ, “Officials say that the files differ greatly from what has been discussed at the technical level in Brussels in recent days and underline how Mr. Varoufakis continues to complicate progress toward a financing deal.”
“There is hardly any connection between his blueprint and the ongoing negotiations,” one EU official was quoted as saying. “It seems like a fine program for a country that does not have any financing problems, but just wants to catch up and be a nice tourist destination.”
Earlier this week, the Economist’s Charlemagne column put the SYRIZA government’s first 100 days under the “political microscope”.
On Friday evening, EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said reforms in Greece’s economy were not going fast or far enough.
Speaking to French radio, he said progress must be made at Monday Eurogroup meeting.
“Progress would be that the Greek government decides to adopt a series of reforms that make the Greek economy stronger,” he stressed.

Economist

Entitled “The sorry saga of Syriza”, the column’s subhead adds: “In its first hundred days Greece’s government has failed dismally. A crunch looms”.

“Syriza, under the leadership of the new prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, offered an attractive promise to a country battered by recession and humiliated by years of tutelage at the hands of foreign bureaucrats. Mr Tsipras promised to tear up the bail-outs, restore Greek dignity and keep the euro (as the vast majority of Greeks want). Greece might also, ministers mused, change the rules of euro-zone governance, to the benefit of all Europeans,” Charlemagne writes, adding:
“Three months on, the first two of these pledges are in tatters, the third looks shaky and the fourth is a bad joke. Less than a month after the election, Greece agreed to extend its second bail-out until the end of June, in the hope of securing the €7.2 billion ($8.1 billion) left in the kitty. The abrasive approach of Mr Tsipras and Mr Varoufakis since then may have played well at home, but abroad it has won Greece nothing but mistrust and scorn.”