Athens
The Greek government said Tuesday that it wants to see a final deal on its international bailout hammered out by August 20, as it presented parliament with more draft legislation on the cash-for-reforms agreement.
Lawmakers are due to vote on a second batch of reforms Wednesday in a fresh test of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' authority, after he suffered a major rebellion in his radical-left party Syriza during a vote on a first tranche of bailout measures last week.
After parliament has voted on the second bill -- which must pass if Greece is to receive the bailout worth up to 86 billion euros ($93 billion) over three years -- the government "will immediately resume negotiations with the (lender) institutions, EU, ECB and IMF, which should take until August 20 at the latest," said government spokeswoman Olga Gerovassili.
August 20 is the deadline for debt-crippled Greece to pay 3.2 billion euros owed to the European Central Bank, ahead of a payment of 1.5 billion euros owed to the International Monetary Fund in September.
The Greek government received a boost Tuesday when Standard & Poor's raised its credit rating by two notches to CCC+ from CCC-, still in junk territory but a step in the right direction.
S&P said that the scenario of Athens defaulting on its debts was no longer inevitable in the coming year and thus the chances of Greece having to pull out of the euro were reduced, though still "high".
Athens was able to pay off billions in debt to the ECB and IMF on Monday with 7.16 billion euros of emergency "bridge" funding granted by the EU.
Tsipras managed to push the first series of unpopular reforms through parliament last Wednesday -- including sweeping changes to Greece's taxes, pensions and labour rules -- but only with the help of pro-European opposition parties.
Within Syriza, 32 of the party's 149 MPs voted against the measures, including former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis among them. A further six abstained.
