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Tsipras: ‘EU/IMF Rift On Greek Debt Is Damaging The Country’

Greece has already received two bailouts in 2010 and 2012, worth a total of €240 billion ($272 billion) from its creditors following the economic crisis in the Southeast European country back in 2009.

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Tsipras said that the fact that there were no other fires in the country Monday was helping the effort to bring the blaze under control.

The debt relief measures now under discussion between Greece and its creditors don’t include any nominal haircut, just financial engineering to ease repayment schedule. “What is delaying the effort of regaining the trust of the markets is the constant disagreement between the European institutions and the IMF”, Tsipras told a news conference at the Thessaloniki global fair.

He said those disagreements were preventing the inclusion of Greek debt in the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing (QE) asset purchase programme.

Under a deal signed with its creditors – the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – Greece can receive financial assistance worth €86 billion ($96 billion) by 2018 in return for agreed economic reforms.

“I promise that every last euro of this money will go to extraordinary measures to support vulnerable groups and the society that need it”, he said.

Tsipras said time was pressing. It also disagrees with the European Union creditors on how much Athens can improve its finances through ongoing reforms. A country that has gone through such a harsh adjustment can’t wait any longer. “Its people are entitled to a fair solution of the debt issue”, Tsipras said.

Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem warned Athens on Friday to swiftly deliver on overdue reforms as its massive bailout programme fell off track triggering fears of a new row with Greece.

This month, it needs to pursue energy market reforms, create a new body to oversee privatisations and establish a new independent revenue agency.

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“But we don’t have it. and this is because there is this disagreement between the International Monetary Fund and Germany”.

Greece Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras says his country’s attempts at economic recovery are being undermined as a result of a rift between the European Union and the International Monetary Fund over its bailout program