Greece Will Default on June IMF Repayment Says Interior Minister; Greek Choice Same As It’s Always Been

Courtesy of Mish.

One way or another the crisis in Greece is highly likely to come to a head in June.

Greek finances are in such sorry shape it needs a third bailout or it will be unable to meet payment obligations in August. And unless an agreement in June is reached to unleash more funds, Greece will not make it to August.

Today we learn, Interior minister warns Greece will default on June IMF repayment.

Greece has again threatened to default on loan repayments due to the International Monetary Fund, saying it will be unable to meet pension and wage bills in June and also reimburse €1.6bn owed to the IMF without a bailout deal with creditors.

“The money won’t be given . . . It isn’t there to be given,” Nikos Voutsis, the interior minister, told the Greek television station Mega.

He claimed the EU and IMF were pressuring Greece to make unacceptable concessions in the current bailout talks in return for unlocking €7.2bn of aid frozen since last year.

Predicting when Athens will run out of cash has proven a fraught affair for eurozone officials, who have been bracing for default since March.

Given the repeated warnings from Greek officials that bankruptcy is imminent, some officials have begun to disregard such threats, believing Athens is now using them as a negotiating tactic.

But a senior Greek official with knowledge of the government’s funding position confirmed that Athens would be unable to make the IMF payments, which fall due in four separate instalments of more than €300m each between June 5 and June 19, unless a deal is struck.

“We won’t accept blackmail that says it’s either liquidity with a memorandum [the Greek term for a bailout programme] or bankruptcy”, Mr Voutsis said.

The government has ruled out a domestic default on payment obligations to Greece’s 2.9m pensioners and 600,000 public sector workers, saying they have first claim on the country’s shrinking resources.

People who have spoken to Mr Tsipras say he is in a dour mood and willing to acknowledge the serious risk of an accident in coming weeks….