Greek PM renews call for lenders to tackle Greece's debt

June's Eurogroup meeting in Luxembourg finally managed to wrap up an agreement on Greece, after months of uncertainty.

Greece's global lenders prepared on Thursday to unblock as much as 8.5 billion euros (7.44 billion pounds) in loans that Athens desperately needs next month to pay its bills, and to give some idea of what debt relief they may offer over the long-term. Euro zone officials have said that the compromise, if agreed on Thursday, could result in Greece receiving between 7.4 and 8 billion euros ($8.3-9.0 billion) from the euro zone bailout fund ESM to cover July repayments.

The IMF is not calling for Greek debts to be cancelled but wants to ease terms, by extending repayment holidays and deadlines.

He said the best Greece could hope for is some sort of limited debt relief deal in 2018, which will likely be agonizing to extract from Europe but still won't solve Athens' woes.

The accords gave enough clarity to investors on how Greece can manage its crushing debt burden that it should be able to borrow on the market again "in due course" after effectively relying on bailout support from other sovereigns since 2010.

However, Christine Lagarde, the IMF's managing director, said enough progress had been made at Thursday's meeting for her to go to the executive board to get the stand-by facility, which will be less than $2 billion.Lagarde, the IMF's managing director, said enough progress had been made at Thursday's meeting for her to go to the executive board to get the stand-by facility, which will be less than $2 billion.

Just as important have been the talks on debt relief, which was promised as part of Greece's last bailout deal, struck in 2015.

Berlin also wants to retain leverage over Greece to make sure reforms remaining under the bailout are implemented. A full agreement would away agreement on debt relief from Greece's European creditors that the global financial agency has demanded.

A recognition by the International Monetary Fund that Greek debt will become sustainable could have cleared the way for the country's bonds to be included in the European Central Bank's quantitative easing, which would cut borrowing costs and ease its return to the market - a promise the government in Athens has been making for months. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has repeatedly said that debt relief is necessary to get the Greek economy back on track.

There is now "light at the end of the tunnel", he said.

"Optimistic", Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said in a terse comment to reporters as he entered the talks, marking a clear change to the negative mood earlier in the week. "We didn't want the flawless to be the enemy of the good". Further measures such as debt relief would only be considered after this current program was finished, he added.

For Greece, that would limit the amount it has to pay out on debt servicing each year, money it can use to help the Greek economy and society.

In Athens, some 1,500 pensioners gathered to protest against more than a dozen rounds of pension cuts since bailout-induced austerity was enforced seven years ago.

"We can't live on 300 euros (£260)!" they chanted, with some waving sticks.