Greece assures on €450m payment to IMF

Greece has assured the International Monetary Fund that it will not miss a €450m payment to the fund due on Thursday, easing fears that Athens was set to become the first developed country in the IMF's history to default on its debts to the institution.

The Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, on Sunday met for more than two hours with Christine Lagarde, the IMF's managing director, after flying in for what was billed as an "informal meeting" by the fund. He is due to meet with senior US officials on Monday.

In a statement issued after their meeting, Ms Lagarde said Mr Varoufakis had confirmed that Athens would make the next payment due April 9 as part of the plan agreed by a previous government to repay the fund for Greece's first bailout in 2010.

Greece this year is due to repay the IMF more than €9bn as part of a repayment plan that fund officials insist cannot be rescheduled unless Athens agrees to a fresh IMF program, something the new government does not want to do.

Ms Lagarde also said Mr Varoufakis had agreed that discussions in Brussels on Greece's proposed new reform program, as well as efforts by IMF and European officials to conduct "due diligence" in Athens, would "resume promptly on Monday".

The unscheduled weekend flight to Washington by the Greek finance minister had prompted speculation of a more dramatic turn of events, or that Athens was turning to the IMF and the US in a bid to persuade its European creditors to adopt an easier tone in negotiations with Greece.

Those negotiations have grown increasingly acrimonious in recent weeks with European officials openly questioning the makeup of the new government in Athens which has been in power for less than four months.

Further fuelling tensions, officials, including Mr Varoufakis, have said the government would rather pay public sector workers' salaries than the IMF in the event of a cash crunch.

But after the Easter Sunday meeting Ms Lagarde seemed determined to play any chances that Greece would take what would amount to a nuclear option by missing a payment to the fund.

Though doing so would not immediately be officially deemed a default by the IMF, especially if a payment was made within 30 days, it would have significant implications for other creditors and could trigger events that might lead to the country's exit from the eurozone.

In her statement Ms Lagarde said she and Mr Varoufakis had agreed that "effective cooperation is in everyone's interest" and "noted that continuing uncertainty is not in Greece's interest".

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