IMF is making huge demand on Greece in the pension reform: Feb 24, 2016

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24 Feb 2016 02:30GMT

EUR/USD - .....Earlier Reuters reported that the International Monetary Fund is making a big demand on Greece in the pension reform which required to complete its first bailout review. 
Negotiations between the heads of the EU/IMF mission reviewing progress on Greece's pensions overhaul, fiscal targets and the handling of bad loans, took a break earlier this month. 
It is unclear when the lenders will return to Athens and whether the latest impasse can be broken. 

Greece finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos said that the IMF is pushing them far too much. It's not socially sensitive, and is asking them to do more than they had agreed in the summer. 
Under a third bailout of up to 86 billion euros ($95 billion) signed last summer, Greece was asked to cut pension spending by 1 percent of gross domestic product this year. Athens has refused to cut pensions and says it will increase social security contributions instead. 

But IMF's director for Europe, Poul Thomsen, has said that Greece will need to implement extra measures worth about 9 billion euros to meet its fiscal targets by 2018 and that the Fund could not see how Athens could do so without major savings on pensions. 

Without the lenders' acknowledgement of the reforms, the government cannot start relief talks it needs to show austerity-weary Greeks their sacrifices are paying off.