Jan 30
(Reuters) - Greece's government will not cooperate with the EU and IMF mission
bankrolling the country and will not seek an extension to the bailout
programme, its finance minister said on Friday.
Jeroen
Dijsselbloem, head of the euro zone finance ministers' group who is in Athens
for talks with the new government, said the two sides would decide what would
happen next before the programme ends on Feb. 28.
"This
platform enabled us to win the confidence of the Greek people," Finance
Minister Yanis Varoufakis told reporters after their meeting. "Our first
action as a government will not be to reject the rationale of questioning this
programme through a request to extend it."
Varoufakis
said he had assured Dijsselbloem that Athens planned to implement reforms to
make the economy more competitive and have balanced budgets but that it would
not accept a "self-fed crisis" of deflation and non-viable debt.
In turn,
Dijsselbloem said he had told the new government to respect the terms of the
existing agreement between Greece and the euro zone and warned against taking
unilateral steps, saying it was important not to reverse progress made so far.
He said continuing
support from Europe depended on Greece respecting its obligations and it was up
to to Athens to decide its position before moving forward jointly with the euro
zone. (Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas and Renee Maltezou, Writing by Deepa
Babington)
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