In an article titled End "Extend and Pretend" With Greece, published by Project Syndicate on June 15, economists Lucrezia Reichlin, Elias Papaioannou and Richard Portes discuss the negotiations between Greece and its partners, arguing that the policy of “extend-and-pretend” for Greece is no solution at all.

According to the three economists, without a clear strategy to address the structural problems at the core of the Greek crisis - including dysfunctional public administration, oligopolistic product markets, irrational regulatory burdens and heavy bureaucracy - any agreement will lack credibility; yet, any package of structural reforms can only be implemented if austerity is relaxed. 

What is needed now is a new reform-oriented agreement. "The Greek government must take ownership of a comprehensive reform program… At the same time, the European Union and the IMF should help Greece to reform its public administration, strengthen the judiciary, break up cartels, and implement product-market reform." Reichlin, Papaioannou and Portes conclude that if the government embraces this agenda, the troika should reward it with debt relief, both by extending loan maturities and by lowering interest rates.