Greece Takes Reform Plan to Brussels with Referendum Warning

Greece faced deepening skepticism ahead of talks on Monday on its plans for reforms to secure a financial lifeline as Athens warned of a possible referendum if its proposals are rejected.

Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said "there could be problems" if his colleagues from the 19-country eurozone do not accept the list that he is due to present at the Eurogroup meeting in Brussels.

"We can go back to elections. Call a referendum," Varoufakis warned in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on Sunday. "But, as my prime minister told me, we are not glued to our seats yet."

The Greek measures include plans to streamline bureaucracy, raise revenue from online gambling and, in a widely derided suggestion, hire any army of amateur tax sleuths -- including tourists -- to help clamp down on tax dodgers.

But Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said the reforms set out by Varoufakis in an 11-page letter on Friday were "far from complete".

"The Greeks know this. It’s a difficult process that’s going to take a long time," Dijsselbloem, who is also Dutch finance minister, told a panel discussion in Amsterdam on Sunday.

With the crisis deepening, Greece's new hard-left Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is due to hold talks with European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels on Friday, his office announced.

They will discuss "how Greece can utilise European funds to address the humanitarian crisis," the Greek prime minister's office said in a statement.

The new Greek government led by Tsipras's hard-lfet Syriza party, which won elections in January, has vowed to renegotiate Greece's debt and abandon many of the austerity measures imposed under two EU-IMF bailouts worth 240 billion euros ($260 billion) since 2010.

The last time Greece threatened a referendum on its bailout in November 2011, it sent global markets into panic, infuriated its European partners and led to the fall of then prime minister George Papandreou.

- 'Fewer words, more action' - 

Varoufakis later said his comments had been taken out of context but they risk causing further irritation at home and abroad at the hard-charging style of the shaven-headed, Burberry scarf-wearing "rock star" former economics professor.

"We will find a solution. Building up scenarios to the contrary is pointless," Greek Deputy Budget Minister Dimitris Mardas said Monday when asked about the referendum comments.

Dimitris Vitsas, a Syriza official, told Greece's MEGA television: "Neither elections nor a referendum are on the table. We are going to the Eurogroup to seal a deal on the base of a popular mandate, which is not to back down."

Tsipras told Varoufakis and other ministers at the weekend to give fewer interviews, urging "fewer words and more action". 

Eurozone finance ministers agreed at a meeting on February 20 to extend Greece's current bailout by four months until the end of June. 

But the payout of the next tranche of some seven billion euros at the end of April is dependent on its partners accepting the reform plans.

The reform list must also be discussed with the European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF), the other members along with the EU of the "troika" of Greece's creditors, a member of Dijsselbloem's entourage said.

Juncker warned at the weekend of the need to recognise the gravity of the situation in Greece, both for its citizens and the wider risks to the eurozone.

"We must be sure that the situation does not continue to deteriorate in Greece. What worries me is that not everyone in the European Union has understood how serious the situation is," Juncker told German paper Die Welt.

With reports last week of officials looking at borrowing money from state pension funds and EU farm subsidy payments to meet the country's huge debts, the Greek daily Kathimerini warned of "internal bankruptcy".