(MENAFN- AFP) Greece will not receive money from the eurozone rescue fund until it implements all of its proposed reforms, the Spanish economy minister told the Financial Times on Sunday.
"We will see whether the list of reforms is comprehensive enough or not. [But] there will not be any disbursement before there is a real test that the reforms have been approved and implemented," Luis de Guindos told the newspaper.
This contradicts a statement by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras that funds would begin to be disbursed to his cash-strapped government as soon as a new list of reforms is presented to Greece's creditors.
This is not the first time that De Guindos has made controversial statements about Greece. He caused consternation in Athens three weeks ago by twice insisting that it would need a third bailout in the run-up to a highly-charged meeting of Eurogroup finance ministers.
Tsipras is to visit Berlin on Monday for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss their clashing positions on austerity and reaffirm their mutual goal of keeping Greece in the eurozone.
Elected in January on an anti-austerity platform, Greece's radical left-wing government has lobbied for Brussels to release the last tranche of its EU-IMF bailout, but its creditors have held the money back, insisting that it sticks with budgetary rigour.
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