Athens (dpa) - European and US officials on Wednesday urged Greece to reach a deal to unlock its bailout funds as the country and its creditors met for negotiations in Brussels. Speaking at a press conference, European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said "there is a need to reach this agreement as quickly as possible." US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew also called on for the rapid resolution of the Greek crisis, warning that it could get out of control. Addressing students at the London School of Economics before traveling to a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven (G7) leading industrialised nations in Germany, Lew emphasised that Greece and its creditors need to "double down" their efforts to reach a compromise. He also highlighted the risks to the global economy from a Greek default and the country‘s possible exit from the eurozone. Despite months of negotations, Greece‘s leftist coalition government and its creditors have made little progress in finding a deal that would release the remaining 7.2 billion euros (7.8 billion dollars) from its existing bailout. Greece is expected to meet a 300-million-euro loan repayment to the International Monetray Fund (IMF) on June 5, but there are concerns that it may fail to cover repayments scheduled for later in June. In total, the June payments to the IMF amount to about 1.6 billion euros.

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