Athens Calls on EU to Deal With Greek Debt Without IMF

Greece’s foreign debt problem should be settled without the participation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Nikos Pappas, the Minister of State in the Government of Greece, said Sunday.

ATHENS (Sputnik) — The statement comes ahead of Monday’s Eurogroup emergency summit. The meeting will be held less than two weeks before the June 30 deadline, by which Greece needs to agree on an aid-for-reforms deal with the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Commission and the IMF.

"The summit demonstrates that the time for a political solution of the problem has come. In the framework of the European Union", he said in an interview with the local Ethnos newspaper.

The minister stressed that Europe could deal with the issue without IMF’s money and its "one-sided and non-European social agenda."

"It would be nice to find a solution that will not involve it [IMF]," Pappas said.

Greece is undergoing a deep economic crisis, with overall state debt standing at some $350 billion. It needs to agree on a package of economic changes to secure more than $8 billion in extra funds from creditors or face a default on its $1.8-billion IMF loan repayment due this month.

Greece and its lenders have so far refused to accept each other's proposals on unlocking additional aid in exchange for economic reforms and austerity measures, in order to avoid default and a possible exit from the eurozone. The latest talks on the issue took place on Thursday and failed to bring results.