Lagarde-Tsipras telephone conf on Mon. — FT: Athens risks losing IMF support

IMF Chief Christine Lagarde and Greek PM Alexis Tsipras held a telephone conference on Monday in the late afternoon, Athens time.

According to an IMF spokesman in Washington, the two discussed the course of negotiations between Tsipras’ cash-strapped government and the “Institutions” – EC, ECB and the IMF.

The spokesman cited “priorities” that must be promoted.

Back in Athens, a laconic statement by Tsipras’ office said the latter discussed “issues dealing with the ongoing negotiations”.

In a related development from Brussels, bureau chief Peter Spiegel reported that “Greece is so far off course on its $172bn bailout program that it faces losing vital IMF support unless European lenders write off significant amounts of its sovereign debt, the fund has warned Athens’ Erozone creditors.”

Spiegel said the warning was delivered to Eurozone finance ministers by Poul Thomsen, who heads of the IMF’s European department and previously served as the Fund’s top representative in talks with previous Greek governments – when the Institutions were then known as the “troika”.

The report said Thomsen’s warning points to a possible unwillingness by the IMF to release its portion of a €7.2-billion-bailout tranche that the leftist Greek government’s ministers have criss-crossed Europe repeatedly over the past two months to secure.