Talks between Greek officials and representatives of major creditors have resumed in Athens as the southern European nation hopes to secure yet another bailout tranche by July at the latest.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/S. Pantza
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Greek government officials and inspectors from the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the European Stability Mechanism and the International Monetary Fund were seen back at the negotiating table in Athens on Tuesday, following a protracted stand-off among creditors.
EU officials and IMF representatives had been locked in a row over debt relief and budget targets for Greece. The impasse was finally broken in Brussels last week with a compromise that is likely to result in more austerity measures for the cash-strapped nation.
Athens needs the new tranche of bailout cash to meet 7 billion euros ($7.42 billion) of new debt payments in July or risk defaulting on its loans.
The tranche would be part of a third huge aid package of up to 86 billion euros to keep Greece afloat.
Tug of war
According to the Greek Finance Ministry, first talks on Tuesday morning centered on Athens' privatization plans and issues related to energy supply and costs.
The ministry added further savings measures were to be debated in the evening. Greek media reported creditors were calling for additional labor and pension reforms. There was also talk about lowering tax-free income to 6,000 euros a year from 8,636 euros at present.
Combined, the slated austerity measures are to wash another 3.6 billion euros into state coffers. It's yet unclear for how long the inspectors will stay in Greece this time around.
Seven years of bailouts, but Greeks sink deeper into poverty
As Greece's poverty rate doubles despite billions in aid, most Greeks struggle to cover costs and many depend on soup kitchens and handouts.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/Y. Karahalis
Economic hardship
A growing number of Greeks is barely making ends meet. After seven years of bailouts that poured billions of euros into their country, poverty is still an issue, worssening like nowhere else in the EU.
Image: Reuters/A.Konstantinidis
Three bailouts for Greece
Above, people line up to apply for social benefits in Athens. The global financial crisis and its fallout forced four euro zone countries to turn to international lenders. Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus all went through rescue programs - and their economies are growing again. But Greece, the first to receive a bailout in 2010, has already needed three support lines.
Image: Reuters/A.Konstantinidis
Going through hard times
Eva Agkisalaki, 61, a former teacher who volunteers in a soup kitchen run by the Orthodox church, did not qualify for a pension because her contract ended when the retirement age was lifted to 67 under the bailout program. Part of her husband's pension - cut to €600 ($634) from €980 as part of the reform package demanded by the international lenders - goes to her son and daughter's families.
Image: Reuters/A.Konstantinidis
Most Greeks "just exist"
Eva receives handouts from the soup kitchen which she shares with her unemployed daughter and her son. "We're vegetating," she says between setting a long wooden
table for the next meal of bean soup, bread, an egg, a slice of pizza and an apple. "We just exist. Most Greeks just exist."
Image: Reuters/A.Konstantinidis
No debt forgiveness
An elderly man sells chestnuts in front of the parliament building in Athens during a demonstration demanding tax cuts. International creditors are urging tax hikes and pension cuts, but the government says the country has seen enough austerity.
Image: Reuters/A.Konstantinidis
Below the poverty line
An elderly woman eyes donated clothes at a soup kitchen. Greece isn't the poorest member of the EU - poverty rates are higher in Bulgaria and Romania. But it ranks third, with Eurostat data showing 22.2 percent of the population were "severely materially deprived" in 2015.
Image: Reuters/A.Konstantinidis
Little hope for better days
A man patiently waits to have his clothes washed by the Ithaca mobile laundry service. Volunteers drive a van across town with two washing machines and two dryers, offering their services ti the homeless. "You see the same faces, but also new ones," says Fanis Tsonas, co-founder of the mobile laundry as destitute
men and women approach the van toting bags of laundry.
