Despite a continued delay in the release of a one billion euro ($1.37 billion) installment from international lenders, Greece has enough liquidity to wait for the money to be disbursed, the International Monetary Fund’s spokesman said.
“The timing of the disbursement really depends on how the discussions evolve,” Gerry Rice, the IMF’s Communications Director, told reporters in Washington. “We believe that Greece’s financing needs in the coming months can be met from existing liquidity buffers.”
Greece and officials from the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) have been at loggerheads for months over long-delayed reforms, including privatization, worker firings and the size of a hole in the 2014 budget that could be anywhere from 500 million to 2.9 billion euros. Greece thinks it’s smaller, the Troika says it’s bigger.
The Troika envoys, unable to reach any agreements, left Athens and won’t return until next month, sometime around a Dec. 9 meeting of Eurozone officials. In the meantime, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras submitted the budget to the Parliament but lawmakers won’t take it up until next month either.
“Greece has been facing a crisis for quite some time, there are very difficult issues to be addressed in a range of areas,” Rice said. “I don’t think it’s surprising that it would take a while to work these through.” He said the IMF expects Greece to post a budget surplus excluding interest payments in 2013, a year earlier than expected.
“As demonstrated in this year’s experience, the Greek authorities have a strong track record on meeting their fiscal targets and are fully committed to those for next year,” Rice said.
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