Yatsenyuk: Greece’s problems "nothing" compared to Ukraine

"This government faced the challenges that no other European government has faced for two decades. We can only congratulate them on the fact that they have not faced these [challenges],” said the prime minister.

He once again stressed that Ukraine had stated its position, and the lenders’ support for this position would be a gesture of goodwill on their part.

Yatsenyuk pointed out that the problems in Greece are “nothing” compared to the problems of Ukraine.

"In Greece, there are no Russian tanks, thousands of victims, and the loss of 20% of the economy, although [they have already received EUR] 300 billion, and another [EUR] 80 billion was promised. This is just to compare the figures. Greece has a population four times less than in Ukraine, and Ukraine [received] $17.5 [billion] and another $7.5 [billion] from the United States and other donors,” said Yatsenyuk, “But we are grateful for the level of support for Ukraine, although we have to admit we are really underfunded. Therefore, we need a successful completion of the operation on debt restructuring. Our lenders have received an offer from the government. This is a fair market proposal. We hope that lenders will cooperate and accept our offer. Thus, they will help the Ukrainian people with the dollars, not with words. It was not us who took these loans, nut we are aware of our responsibility for the country’s financial state. And I’m asking the creditors to also understand their responsibility."

Earlier, Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko reported that the next round of negotiations with the creditors may take place this week - before the end of July. According to the finance minister, the new government's proposals have been submitted to the creditors, and their response is expected by the end of July. However, she clarified that the details of the talks were not disclosed because it was a key condition for negotiations.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine officials and the ad hoc creditors' committee have made progress at direct talks in Washington on the restructuring of the public debt, according to a joint statement of the Ukrainian Finance Ministry and the committee on July 15.  Further meetings were scheduled for late July. On July 23, Bloomberg reported that representatives of the Ukrainian authorities and the Creditors' Committee headed by Franklin Templeton would not hold direct talks this week, as originally planned.

Ukraine started negotiations on the restructuring of the public debt on March 13, immediately following the approval of the program with the IMF on a $17.5 billion installment.

The Creditors' Committee addressed the IMF and Ukraine’s Finance Ministry through the media and intermediaries with a proposal to extend the maturity of debt and lower the coupon, while abandoning the idea of ​​writing off the face value of the debt.

In June, Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko said that Ukraine may "theoretically" declare a moratorium on the payment of the public debt, as this right is enshrined by law which had come into force on June 17, empowering the Cabinet of Ministers to impose a moratorium on foreign debt payments to private creditors until July 01, 2016, noting that there were no such concrete plans at the moment.