Primeminister Alexis Tsipras, spoke yesterday on a tv show and blamed IMFas essentially responsible for the delays in the negotiation and the completion of the premier assessment.


Speaking on Monday's late night show "Singular",Mr. Tsipras said that there is no similarity between the situation now and the 2015 period.

He argued, indeed, that this is the first time that Athens estimates of what needs to be done with regard to the reform track, coincide with those of the ESM, the ECB and the European Commission, stressing that only the IMF has a different assessment.

As he said the completion of the evaluation will provide much-needed debt relief, which he described as "our Ithaca."

He assured categorically, that there is no possibility of «bail-in», ie "haircut" of deposits in Greek banks.

He featured, inherent problem in the presence of the IMF program, and invited it to return to realism.

He avoided to link the evaluation with the refugee crisis, saying that it is not in its design.

However, he argued that the issue of refugee is changing the data and cited statements of Francois Hollande and Wolfgang Schäuble.

At the same time, he stressed that the government will work towards a rapid conclusion of the evaluation, however, it will not accept unreasonable demands and estimated that, by the second half of 2016, the country will return to positive growth rates.

He admitted, however, that there are "red line" of the government to not cut high pensions of 3,000 euros, although he refused to speak out and identify specific ceiling protecting the pensions.

"To stop the joke"

The prime minister defended his decision to referendum on 5 July 2015, stating that he did not turn into 'yes' to the Greek people's "no" and insisted that he was the only prime minister who negotiated until the end and did not back down .

He described as "stupid" the placement of Yanis Varoufakis that the Greek government really wanted to get the 'yes' vote.

"I accept the criticism, but regarding of ethical issues I will not accept even a fly on my sword," he said.

Implicitly, he took responsibility for the wrong people choices, "photographing" Mr. Varoufakis.