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Dijsselbloem: There is an international conference on the Greek debt and it is the Eurogroup

30 January 2015 / 20:01:08  GRReporter
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"It is of great importance for Greece to continue on the path of economic recovery. Unilateral fiscal actions cannot be a path of development," said Dutch Minister of Finance and President of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem after the meeting with his Greek counterpart Yanis Varoufakis in Athens.

During a brief press conference, he said that the purpose of his visit was to be acquainted with the intentions of the new Greek government and to discuss the possible solutions after the extension of the rescue programme to Greece expires at the end of February.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem pointed out that the issue of extending the programme will be discussed in the coming weeks, adding that the outcome of the negotiations will depend on the position of Athens. The President of the Eurogroup also noted that Greece cannot break away from the agreements and that the elections have not solved its problems.

For his part, Greece’s Minister of Finance said that the government has no intention of cooperating with the supervisory Troika. "It is one thing to collaborate with institutions such as the European Union and the International Monetary Fund and completely different with a three-member commission with anti-European logic that is standing on rotten soil and that is assigned to monitor the implementation of a programme that we reject," said Varoufakis.

He added that the new Greek cabinet has a plan for deep reforms, which must be conducted "without fear and emotions" and will be a guarantee of balanced government budgets with small primary surpluses in the future.

The intentions of the Greek government had been apparent earlier today and the information that Greece would break off its cooperation with the supervisory Troika appeared even while the meeting between Varoufakis and Dijsselbloem was still in progress. User Zerohedge reported that the government does not want the representatives of Athens’ lenders to return, referring to the international agency Reuters.

In addition, in an interview with The New York Times newspaper Yanis Varoufakis said Greece does not want the next tranche of the bailout amounting to 7.2 billion euro. "Our task is not to get the next loan tranche. We want to sit down and rethink the whole programme, to restructure the debt and the economy to get the money we need."

Jeroen Dijsselbloem first met with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Athens but no official statements followed the conversation between them.
 
According to sources, the Greek Prime Minister said during the meeting that his government is ready to begin the implementation of reforms, which will aim to fight tax evasion, corruption and clientelistic relations.

Tags: PoliticsJeroen DijsselbloemYanis VaroufakisEurogroupSupervisory TroikaDebtBailout
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