It was all smiles as Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis met the head of the IMF in Washington over the weekend and pledged that Greece would meet its €450m repayment to the Fund later this week.

It’s the first of a number of significant funding hurdles the Greeks must face over the next couple of weeks, including the latest round of public service pensions and salaries early next week.

The scale of the pension reforms still required by Greece’s troika of funders was highlighted over the weekend by the Economist magazine.

Greek spending on pensions is still the highest in the EU at 17.5 per cent of GDP compared to just over 12 per cent in Germany.

Meanwhile, most recent statistics show that just over one-third of Greeks in the 55-64 year age bracket continue to work. The majority have retired.