Greece's reform pitch to EU creditors

(ATHENS) - Greece on Wednesday will present to its European creditors its first concrete proposals for a new four-year reform deal, in return for temporary funding to meet its financing needs until September 1.

Here are the main points of the proposals, to be discussed by eurozone finance ministers on Wednesday and EU leaders on Thursday.

- Cash bridge to September -

Greece wants the European Central Bank to hand over 1.9 billion euros ($2.2 billion) in profits made from Greek state bonds.

Athens also wants ECB permission to issue up to 8.0 billion euros in short-term debt to meet its immediate financing needs, and to tap a European support fund originally created to prop up Greek banks.

The Greek government calls this a "bridge agreement" that will enable it to stay afloat until it can agree a new four-year reform plan with its EU creditors.

"The bridge agreement... will give us time to jointly create a four-year plan," Greek government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis said Tuesday, adding that Athens faced a "difficult summer" to redeem maturing ECB-held bonds worth 6.7 billion euros.

- Pro-growth reforms -

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has called the country's EU-IMF bailout deal "toxic", and Athens wants to ditch around a third of the agreement.

A Greek finance ministry source said Athens has enlisted the help of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development to propose a list of ten alternative reforms that will not exacerbate poverty and unemployment in the crisis-hit country.

No specific details have emerged on the ten proposals, but the Greek government has pledged to take a strong stance against market cartels, corruption, tax evasion and smuggling.

- Milder budget targets -

Under the previous conservative government, Greece was supposed to deliver a primary budget surplus of 3.0 percent of output this year, that is before debt repayments.

The new government says such targets -- achieved through tax hikes and wage cuts -- make an economic recovery impossible.

Instead, Athens will pledge to maintain a primary budget surplus of 1.5 percent of output, a result already achieved in 2014.

- Reduce soaring state debt -

Three years ago, Greece brokered a debt write-down with private creditors that shaved off around 100 billion euros from its repayment schedule.

But as the economy continued to shrink, and Athens kept on accepting EU-IMF loans to stave off bankruptcy, the debt has shot up to 318 billion euros and once again appears unsustainable.

Greece will propose a series of debt swaps, and also wants to link debt repayment to annual economic growth.

- Address poverty, unemployment -

The radical Syriza party has been warning for years that the austerity measures enforced in return for the bailout loans have caused a "humanitarian crisis" in the country.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told parliament on Sunday that over 1.5 million Greeks lost their jobs, and over 2.5 million live below the poverty line.

His "social salvation" government has pledged to spend 2.0 billion euros over the next year to provide free food, electricity, accommodation and medical support to thousands of poor families.

The government has already announced plans to gradually raise the minimum wage to 751 euros, from 580 euros currently, and hire back thousands of civil servants fired by previous governments under strict EU-IMF layoff quotas.