The United States on Friday urged Greece's government to go through "every line" in its budget to come up with a detailed economic reform plan that satisfies its international creditors.
"I believe that the kind of detail that's needed requires going literally through every line in your budget," Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said in a news conference following a meeting in which he urged Greece's finance minister to quickly come up with a solution.
"This isn't resolved by speeches, it isn't resolved by rhetoric. It's resolved by the hard technical work. It's something that the European and global economies don't need — to have another crisis," Lew told reporters Friday.
Lew said he stressed in a series of one-on-one meetings, including discussions with Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, that it was urgent that the debt negotiations be resolved quickly.
The status of the Greek debt talks was a prime topic on the sidelines at the spring meetings of the 188-nation International Monetary Fund and its sister lending organization, the World Bank. Those meetings were scheduled to conclude Saturday with financial officials addressing a variety of issues — from the weak global economy to a stalled effort to overhaul IMF voting procedures.
The negotiations over Greece's debt have proved contentious. Greek officials said they planned to meet with creditors Saturday in a search for "common ground."
Some finance officials expressed their frustration with Greece's new left-wing government, elected in January. Luis de Guindos, Spain's economy minister, said the Greek government had 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 with 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."
Source: Reuters, AP
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