ATHENS, Greece (AP) – Greece will not be able to repay a loan to the International Monetary Fund early next month unless a deal is reached with its creditors to unblock bailout funds, the governing party’s parliament spokesman said Wednesday.
Nikos Filis said the government would give priority to the payment of salaries, pensions and the general running costs of the state rather than the IMF repayment on June 5.
“No country can repay its debts with only the money from its budget,” he told Ant1 television. “We don’t have it to repay it, and it’s a subject of the discussions.”
Greece’s new government has been struggling for four months to agree on reforms that creditors require in return for the disbursement of the remaining 7.2 billion euros ($8 billion) of the country’s bailout program.
Locked out of the international bond market by prohibitively high interest rates, Greece relies on the bailout funds to service its debts and avoid default.