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The heads of the supervisory Troika postponed their visit to Athens to the end of the month. The negotiations for the granting of the 6^th tranche of the aid amounting to 110 billion dollars are expected to be held then. All this raises serious concerns about the exact payment date of the tranche.

In an attempt to go ahead of the events, the Greek Ministry of Finance said that the payment date of the first installment of the tranche, which was scheduled for September 15, is indicative and non-binding. It is quite evident, however, that the delay could be quite long if the negotiations between the Greek financial institution and the heads of the Troika do not bring the expected result. This means that if the Greek state requires the medium term measures to be changed or to make an addition, the road to the 8 billion euro from the 6^th tranche will be longer. € 5.8 billion of them come from the European Union and € 2.2 billion from the International Monetary Fund.

The timing of contacts and the list of issues in the fifth inspection of the Memorandum of financial aid should be specified before that as well as the first assessment of the implementation of the austerity plan. According to the Greek Ministry of Finance, the only development that is certain is the arrival of the lower members of the Troika on August 22. They believe that the experts will need at least a week to pave the way for the representatives of the three-member committee. Representatives of the Ministry claim that there is time to cover the financial needs of the country without difficulty.

However, all expectations are that the contracts with private investors will shift to the end of September at best. The option the contract with private investors and the decision to strengthen the European mechanism for financial aid to be separated also take time. According to Commissioner Olli Rehn, the European Union will submit its proposal in late August, and the parliaments of member states are to hold debates.

On the other hand, according to an article in the Financial Times, Brussels is working on a fast-track procedure for funding the repurchase of Greek government bonds worth 20 billion euro because of the delayed approval process for the increased resources and the new powers of the European Financial Stability Facility.

The article in the economic issue, which is referring to official documents, reads that the European Union is preparing for a delay in the improvement of the eurozone rescue mechanism just because the procedure requires a vote by the parliaments of the member states. Therefore, they are planning to repurchase the Greek bonds maturing in September with the 24 billion euro left over from the first bail-out rather than with funds from the eurozone rescue mechanism.

The original plan is the repurchase of the 20 billion euro to take place in September, but the improvement of the European Financial Stability Facility will not be possible before October. According to these documents, it is not clear whether the IMF is ready to repurchase part of the Greek debt within the first program of economic support.

However, before all this, the Greek government will have to deal with the criticism from the financial Troika, which will arrive to check whether Athens has done everything necessary to receive the next tranche of the loan. In addition to the significant discrepancies in the permanent budget, the Troika expects actual results in the structural changes that the government had to take in August. In July, the "hole" in the regular budget amounted to 4.5 billion euro and must be filled with the implementation of measures amounting to 6.7 billion euro.

At the same time, a number of reforms are coming and the government and the creditors will adopt the relevant decisions jointly. They include the single payroll table, the closures and mergers of large state enterprises, the list of hard jobs and auxiliary pensions.

The main topic of the discussions will be privatizations and the operatiom of the competent agency. A month after its establishment, it is still only on paper, because the responsible Ministerial Committee, which will irrevocably transfer the ownership of state enterprises and state real property, as is required by the Memorandum, has not yet met.