No Cash for Greece Until Reforms Agreed: European Commission

Washington: Despite tightening liquidity, Greece is unlikely to get any money from Eurozone finance ministers at an April 24 meeting because it is dragging its feet on reforms, European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said on Friday.

Greece is quickly running out of cash and in the next few weeks may face a choice of either paying salaries and pensions or paying back loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Athens could get more loans from both the IMF and Eurozone governments, but it would first have to implement reforms, agreed with the creditors, to make its public finances sustainable and its economy more competitive.

The Alexis Tsipras government does not want to implement many of those measures, such as a pension reform, because it won elections in late January on promises of an end to austerity. Discussions on the reforms have stalled.

"Unfortunately, so far, progress in the technical discussions has been limited," Mr Dombrovskis, Latvia's former prime minister, told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in Washington.

"It is really about time to speed up negotiations. It first and foremost requires a Greek government commitment to stick to the programme's conditions and to implement the necessary structural reforms," he said.

He added that in the absence of a comprehensive list of Greek reforms, the April 24 Eurozone ministerial meeting in Riga is likely to merely take stock of the situation and give some guidance to negotiators, but would not be able to decide on any disbursements.

"In order to receive funds, Greece needs to demonstrate sufficient progress as regards its structural reform efforts. There is no way around it. Now it is the last moment to start working more intensively," Mr Dombrovskis said.

"It is unlikely that we will be able to conclude on April 24 that there is sufficient progress. You need to conclude the review in order to disburse," he said, referring to implementing reforms agreed under the existing 240 billion euro bailout.

Mr Tsipras does not want to take economic measures that were agreed to by the previous government, arguing that the policies of the last five years, applied at the request of Greece's creditors, have not brought the desired effects.

Mr Dombrovskis said Eurozone ministers were ready to accept other reforms the new Greek government might propose, as long as they would have the effect of stabilising public finances.

"It now really depends on the Greek side - how quickly they are willing to move on in the negotiations, in structural reforms and with the implementation of conditions, so that they can access the funds in the existing programme," he said.

Greece could still get 7.2 billion euros this year from the existing bailout agreement, which would greatly help ease its cash shortage.

"The liquidity situation is complicated, but this is another reason for the Greek side to work more intensively on the technical negotiations and to meet their commitments," Mr Dombrovskis said.