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Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Tsipras presses for May debt deal, threatens referendum

By Renee Maltezou and Deepa Babington ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Tuesday he was confident of an outline deal with international creditors within two weeks, after shaking up his negotiating team and sidelining his finance minister who has infuriated euro zone partners. Athens is weeks away from running out of cash, and talks with EU and IMF lenders on more aid have been deadlocked over their demands for Greece to implement reforms, including pension cuts and labour market liberalisation. Greek financial markets and the euro rallied on hopes that the relegation of Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, a Marxist academic prone to lecturing his euro zone peers, would improve prospects for an early deal to avoid a default that might lead to a Greek exit from the currency area. Yet around half of investors expect Greece to leave the euro zone within the next 12 months, a survey published by German research group Sentix showed on Tuesday.


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