Jack Lew: Greece’ s Issue Must be Solved As Soon As Possible

US Finance Minister, Jack Lew requested from the IMF, the European Institutions and Greece, to complete the program evaluation and find a reasonable solution to the restructuring of the country’s debt, after meeting with Greek Finance Minister, Euclid Tsakalotos.

The Greek Minister also discussed the evaluation with German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, as well as the President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi.



“The United States is not one of the institutions that is involved in these negotiations,” Lew said in a Press Conference at Washington University, “however, we have been a part of this discussion for a long time now and we have asked all sides to find a reasonable solution to solve their differences and to make the difficult decisions that are necessary.”

According to Lew “this means that the institutions must approach the discussions with Greece with a spirit of goodwill to solve differences and find a way to go forward.”

According to the US Finance Minister, “all sides are assuring me that their goals are to make this happen. This does not mean that everyone is in the same place. We will continue to partake in the discussion, from the outside, even though that is fundamentally not our role, and I hope that we are helpful to clarify several issues and to help facilitate communication. But in the end, it is essentially an issue that the IMF, the European Institutions and Greece must solve.”

Jack Lew, addressing all sides partaking in the issue, made clear that “it is a problem that must be solved and it must be done as soon as possible.” He warned that “it would not be good to have a crisis situation like we had in the past, if the talks fail. The solution is not for any of the members to say that they will leave, but for all members to make difficult decisions on how to solve the matter. There will be constant consultations between Greece and the institutions, who have made progress and I think that it is important to note that since last year, Greece has implemented many difficult policies; however now there is a gap which must be filled in a way that all institutions can accept.”