U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew urged Athens to reach to a deal with international creditors in order to avoid hardships in Greece and damage to the global economy.
“I believe that the kind of detail needed requires going literally through every line in your budget,” the U.S. Treasury Secretary told Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis on Friday and repeated it at a press conference after the meeting.
“This is not resolved by speeches, it is not resolved by rhetoric. It is resolved by the hard technical work. It is something that the European and global economies don’t need — to have another crisis,” Lew told reporters on Friday.
On his part, Varoufakis said that “the Greek government doesn’t need admonitions about the need for reforms. We are the ones to judge and we will be judged about the success of our reforms plan.”
“What we are trying to achieve in negotiations is to convince creditors that the previous reforms plan was too light and it was aiming at the wrong problems,” he added.
However, certain European Finance Ministers expressed their frustration over Greece’s stance in negotiations. Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said the Greek government has sent “contradictory” signals regarding the negotiations.
“We have wasted very precious time over the last three or four weeks,” de Guindos said in an interview to The Associated Press. “The communication of the Greek government has not been great. They have not made a lot of friends,” he said, while adding, “I expect and I hope that the communication will improve.”
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