2015-03-03telegraph.co.uk

Yanis Varoufakis, the finance minister, sought to silence such talk over the weekend, telling Associated Press that a default to the IMF was out of the question, even if a halt in payments to the EU institutions remains a serious threat. "We are not going to be the first country not to meet our obligations to the IMF. We shall squeeze blood out of stone if we need to do this on our own, and we shall do it," he said.

...

Mr Varoufakis said Greece did not want any further money if it meant having to buckle to Troika terms. "We won't take the next tranche if the price is having to continue with the 'Memorandum'. That is not what the people voted for," he said. It is a thinly-veiled warning that Greece will default on €300bn of combined liabilities to EMU entities and states if pushed too hard, regardless of what this implies for monetary union.

Whatever piece of paper they signed in Brussels 10 days ago, the two sides are still talking past each other.



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