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Greece’s Tense Talks With Its Creditors Escalate to the Next Phase

Mario Draghi, the E.C.B. president, with Jeroen Dijsselbloem, head of the Eurogroup, on Monday in Brussels.Credit...Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

James Kanter and

BRUSSELS — Greece’s debt negotiations with its international creditors will proceed to the next, more technical level later this week, as a result of an agreement reached on Monday by eurozone finance ministers.

The left-led Athens government, which came to power in January on a pledge to stop Greece’s capitulation to inspectors from the so-called troika that represents the country’s creditors, immediately began taking pains to say the new round of talks will be on its own terms.

But after weeks of wrangling over how and whether to continue hewing to the dictates of its 240 billion-euro bailout program, Greece has clearly tried the patience of the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers who have been holding the discussions so far. And so on Wednesday, Greece will begin talks in Brussels directly with representatives of the troika: the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

“There is no further time to lose,” Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the head of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, said here at a news conference Monday evening. The talks “must and will start” on Wednesday, he said.

And though the Greek government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has been insisting that it will negotiate with the creditors only in Brussels, to avoid the continued stigma of inspectors periodically occupying Athens, Eurogroup members on Monday indicated that it was not feasible to get a clear picture of the Greek economy without emissaries visiting Greece’s capital.

“Some people will have to be on the ground in Athens,” Mr. Dijsselbloem said. That visit would be in addition to the meeting with the Greek officials in Brussels on Wednesday, although Mr. Dijsselbloem did not say when it would take place.

The visitors would be given “full access” to Greek officials, Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, told a news conference after the meeting. But those visitors should not “enter the ministries” displaying “a kind of power play that smacked of a colonial attitude,” said Mr. Varoufakis. “That practice is finished.”

Although European officials had agreed in principle in late February to disburse an additional 7 billion euros, or about $7.6 billion, from Greece’s bailout program, they have indicated that no money will be released before a full assessment of the Greek economy is complete and overhauls are in place.

And they have said it would happen only if the new left-leaning Greek government could demonstrate it was serious about improving its tax-collecting efforts and making structural changes in the economy.

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The Bank of Greece in Athens on Monday. The country could run out of money before the end of this month.Credit...Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters

Greece could have access bailout money as soon as it moves to pass laws and make those structural changes, Mr. Dijsselbloem said at the news conference. But those payments would be made only once such steps are “well off the ground,” he said.

Payments to Greece could be “cut into parts, which we’ve done before,” he said, apparently offering Greece the incentive of financial rewards each time it made significant progress toward its creditors’ goals.

Late last week, Mr. Varoufakis submitted a set of proposed measures, including an unorthodox plan to enlist Greek citizens and tourists in an undercover program meant to identify tax evaders.

If that idea conveyed a sense of desperation, it might be for good reason. Greece risks running out of money before the end of this month, as tax receipts shrink and the economy shows signs of lapsing back into recession. The government could have trouble repaying or refinancing about €6 billion in debt obligations for this month, including around €1.5 billion in payments to the International Monetary Fund and more than €3 billion in Treasury bill redemptions.

Asked for his assessment about the current cash position of Greece, Mr. Varoufakis declined to offer numbers. He said Greece’s liquidity position would be “guaranteed” by the government and its creditors.

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on Saturday, Mr. Varoufakis said Greece could call elections or a referendum in the event that its proposed overhauls are rejected by international creditors. As the Greek news media feverishly speculated over the weekend about a possible referendum on the country’s membership in the eurozone, the government accused the newspaper of distorting the minister’s comments, saying he had not suggested Greece would hold a referendum on the euro but on the country’s economic program and fiscal policy.

Panos Kammenos, Mr. Tsipras’s junior coalition partner and the defense minister, also suggested on Saturday that a referendum could be an option.

Antonis Samaras, the former prime minister, on Sunday rejected a potential referendum as a “very bad development,” saying it would allow the government to shirk its responsibilities. The criticism continued on Monday with central members of Mr. Samaras’s conservative party describing Mr. Varoufakis as “dangerous” because of both the referendum idea and his proposal to employ Greeks and tourists as undercover agents to bolster a tax evasion crackdown.

Some officials of the Syriza-led government also expressed reservations about a referendum, which the prominent legislator Alexis Mitropoulos described as “naïve and thoughtless.”

At his news conference late on Monday, Mr. Varoufakis denounced the way his comments had been presented in Corriere della Serra as part of a “process of misinformation.” Mr. Varoufakis said any reference that he made to a referendum had been entirely “hypothetical” because he was referring to the improbable circumstance that European lenders rejected all of Greece’s proposed reforms.

Opinion polls consistently indicate that most Greeks want the country to remain in the eurozone, but a majority continue to back the government’s tough stance against creditors.

James Kanter reported from Brussels, and Niki Kitsantonis from Athens. Liz Alderman contributed reporting from Paris.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: Greece’s Tense Talks With Its Creditors Escalate to the Next Phase. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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