ATHENS, June 1: Greece came under conflicting pressure from unions and its creditors on Wednesday over the tough reforms needed to stabilise its public finances in exchange for a fresh rescue package now under discussion.

As the embattled Socialist government laboured to conclude an EU-IMF audit to unlock funds to pay next month's bills, the European Central Bank gave Athens another stern warning ahead of a key eurozone meeting in Vienna.

The country's main union in turn called a strike at all the companies the government has earmarked for sale in an effort to win over sceptical European states such as Germany who are reluctant to stump up even more money for Athens.

“A strike will be held on June 9 at all the (state) companies to be privatised,” GSEE chairman Yiannis Panagopoulos said in a statement.

“We also propose a general strike to be held on June 15, a popular uprising of workers against this policy,” Panagopoulos said.

There have been two general strikes so far this year against the austerity measures agreed with the EU, IMF and ECB, the 'troika' that last year gave Athens a three-year, 110-billion-euro ($158-billion) loan to stave off bankruptcy.

This past week, scores of thousands of Greeks have gathered at Athens' main Syntagma Square to peacefully protest against successive waves of spending cuts and tax hikes that have brought a deep recession and many layoffs.

Some 50 billion euros of state assets are to be sold to reduce the Greek debt of over 350 billion euros.

The sum is so vast that most investors believe a debt restructuring is inevitable but the consequences of that course are so fearful that few officials can contemplate the option easily.

“Restructuring is not part of our plan,” EU economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn insisted on Wednesday in New York.

With the Greek bailout deeply unpopular in some European countries, most notably Germany, speculation has mounted that Europe may be considering forcing Greek bond holders to accept reduced or later payments.

Rehn discounted such a move and said it would do little to help Greece's financial plight. To restructure “just like that ... “will not solve fundamental problems of Greece.”

However, German finance ministry spokesman Martin Kotthaus said Berlin had “strong expectations” that private investors would ultimately share part of the burden of any additional aid package.

“If the public sector gives more ... it is clear that private creditors must participate” as well, he told a press conference.

While it was not clear how that would be done, one possibility would be for holders of Greek debt to simply roll over, or renew, bonds when they came due.

Such a method was used to help several eastern European countries during the global financial crisis in 2009.

The ECB's chief economist earlier urged Greece to intensify its reform efforts while another of its senior members said up to 70 billion euros, on top of the existing EU-IMF loan, could be needed to keep the Greece going.

“Greece has put in place over decades poor economic policies and has lived above its means. A 180 degree U-turn is inevitable and will be painful,” ECB chief economist Juergen Stark told Swiss business weekly Handelszeitung.

In another interview with the Financial Times, ECB executive board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi also spoke of a Greek “financing gap” of around 60-70 billion euros in 2012-13, when the current EU-IMF loan begins to wind down.—AFP