ATHENS, Sept 7 (Reuters) – Greece hopes a major state
sell-off this autumn will persuade international inspectors
arriving on Friday to keep the country’s aid lifeline open
despite scant progress on reforms promised in return for the
cash.

The so-called troika of the International Monetary Fund,
European Commission and European Central Bank will assess
Greece’s progress towards targets set under its bailout before
deciding next month whether to pay out a 31 billion euro loan.

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek political leaders agreed to 11.5 billion euros ($14.14 billion) of austerity cuts demanded under its bailout terms, opening the way for a deal with foreign lenders within the month, Greek officials said on Wednesday.

The junior partners in the conservative-led coalition government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras set aside demands for an immediate renegotiation of the terms of the deal to ease talks with the troika of IMF and EU lenders.

ATHENS, July 30 (Reuters) – Greek Prime Minister Antonis
Samaras’s allies are pushing for two more years to implement
unpopular austerity cuts before they sign off on them, sources
close to the parties said on Monday, potentially delaying a deal
on the savings demanded by lenders.

The three parties in Samaras’s coalition have agreed on the
bulk of the nearly 12 billion euros ($14.7 billion) in cuts that
Greece must produce to satisfy inspectors from the European
Union and International Monetary Fund bailing out the nation.

ATHENS (Reuters) – Just over a decade ago, Napoleon Tsanis set out from Sydney with 11 million euros and a dream to build a shrimp farm in his ancestral homeland.

What he got was years of wrestling Greek bureaucracy and a court battle with a civil servant. Tsanis eventually opened his shrimp farm, but even now the Greek-Australian has managed to invest just 2 million euros ($2.5 million), and that thanks to sheer stubbornness and a strong Australian dollar that has kept his venture profitable despite the delays.

ATHENS (Reuters) – Inspectors from the international lenders keeping Greece afloat return to Athens on Tuesday to relaunch its stalled economic plan and decide whether to keep the nation hooked up to a 130-billion-euro lifeline or let it go bust.

The euro zone member has fallen behind targets agreed as conditions of its bailout deal, mainly due to three months of political limbo as it struggled to form a government after two inconclusive elections but also because of resistance to reforms from unions and special interests.

ATHENS (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund’s mission chief for Greece, Poul Thomsen, walked grim-faced into his first meeting with newly elected Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on July 5 wearing a black tie looking as if he was going to a funeral.

Whether he was making a point or not, the first meet-and-greet visit by Greece’s exasperated international lenders with the new government was blunt, both sides told Reuters.

ATHENS, July 19 (Reuters) – The International Monetary
Fund’s mission chief for Greece, Poul Thomsen, walked grim-faced
into his first meeting with newly elected Prime Minister Antonis
Samaras on July 5 wearing a black tie looking as if he was going
to a funeral.

Whether he was making a point or not, the first
meet-and-greet visit by Greece’s exasperated international
lenders with the new government was blunt, both sides told
Reuters.

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece will meet targets set by international lenders, but needs more time and wants to renegotiate policies that make its fiscal situation worse by preventing a return to economic growth, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said on Friday.

In his first policy speech since taking office, Samaras outlined his government’s priorities before a confidence vote on Sunday. Samaras said his aim was not to demand a change of the goals set in the 130 billion euro bailout deal keeping Greece afloat, but in the austerity policies imposed to meet them.

ATHENS (Reuters) – Though it didn’t win last weekend’s election, Greece’s fast-rising radical leftist leader says his party has won the argument against the austerity measures keeping Greece in the eurozone and will inevitably come to power.

“What Syriza has been saying all along is that the bailout plan is not viable and cannot go on,” party chief Alexis Tsipras told Reuters in his first interview since last Sunday’s parliamentary election. “Now they all recognize this.”

ATHENS (Reuters) – Though it didn’t win last weekend’s election, Greece’s fast-rising radical leftist leader says his party has won the argument against the austerity measures keeping Greece in the eurozone and will inevitably come to power.

“What Syriza has been saying all along is that the bailout plan is not viable and cannot go on,” party chief Alexis Tsipras told Reuters in his first interview since last Sunday’s parliamentary election. “Now they all recognise this.”