Greece blames EU,IMF policy clash for failure to compromise

ATHENS (Reuters) - "Serious" policy differences between Greece's two major lenders - the European Union and the International Monetary Fund - are preventing the country from reaching a compromise with lenders, a Greek government official said on Tuesday.

"Serious disagreements between the IMF and the EU are creating obstacles and big risks in the negotiations," a Greek government official said in a statement.

"The result is that the institutions have red lines everywhere: pension, labor (IMF), and primary surplus (Commission). Against this background there cannot be a compromise. The responsibility belongs exclusively to the institutions and their weakness in coordinating."

The comments marked the most serious escalation in rhetoric against the lenders by Athens in recent weeks, and comes after it offered concessions and adopted a more conciliatory public tone in a bid to appease lenders.

Athens has been locked in talks with the EU and IMF for weeks in a bid to secure aid in return for reforms but the talks have failed to produce significant progress, leaving Greece on the verge of bankruptcy.

The Greek official said the IMF was being insistent on pension and labor reforms that Athens opposes, while the European Commission was more leninent. The Europeans, on the other hand, were being strict on the target for a primary budget surplus while the IMF was less worried about that, the official said.

The IMF also wants Greek debt to made viable through a writeoff of debt, while the European Commission is against such debt relief, the official said.

(Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas, Writing by Deepa Babington)