Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis warned that Greece would not pay off its June 5 installment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) if there is no agreement because the money “is not there to be given.” In an interview with CNN’s presenter Richard Quest, Varoufakis spoke about the challenges facing Greece at the moment.

Quest asked Varoufakis if the debt repayment to the IMF would be made. “I’m chronically optimistic so my answer to your question will be colored by this optimism and I shall say we will make the payment because I have no doubt that we will have an agreement by then with the institutions and partners in Europe with the IMF and so forth,” says Varoufakis, but admits that the repayments are dependent on an agreement. “This state cannot continue to make repayments to crediors as part of a loan agreement which was meant to be based on both our making the repayments and then making the disbursements.” 

Quest refered to Varoufakis’ own article that appeared on Project Syndicate, titled “Austerity is the Only Deal-Breaker“, and pointed to pension reform as a “sticking point” for negotiations with Greece’s creditors. “It is A sticking point, it is not THE sticking point. THE sticking point is, as I said in an article that I wrote this morning, the sticking point is austerity,” says Varoufakis, before pointing to Greece as the country with the greatest dose of austerity since World War II.