The leaders of the 27 countries members of the European Union backed up Greece in its strive to reform its pubic finances and to apply the Program for stability and development and in the long run to exit the economic crisis which it is currently in. They however did not bind to any financial support – neither bilateral nor trilateral, nor group aid. At the same time it became clear that the results of the efforts of the Greek government to put an end to the wastes will be followed closely by a supervisory body three representatives of the European Commission, the European central bank and the International Monetary Fund.
If this happens, Greece will be the first case in the European history when the IMF will interfere in the control of the economy of a country member of the EU. Meanwhile more support are gaining the rumors that the vice president of the European central bank Lukas Papademos will be hired as a special delegate of the EU in Athens with authorities to follow the execution of the financial engagements of Athens.
All Greek media express their disappointment that the support for Greece on the part of the European Union currently is just political. Most of the issues put a stress on the strict conditions imposed by Brussels. Here are some of the headlines of the tomorrow’s issues. Katimerini newspaper: Support through supervision for Greece. Etnos newspaper: Support by the European Union through the know how of the International Monetary Fund. Ta Nea newspaper: European support by triple control.
As opposed to the media, the government seems happy with the today’s decision of Brussels. It is ready to do everything in order for Greece to cooperate with the International Monetary fund, the European Union and the European central bank in order to stabilize its own public finances. “Greece needs a psychological and political support. We have never asked for a financial assistance”, stated the Prime Minister George Papandreou in an interview for the French Mond. And yet for the Greek journalists accredited in Brussels he admitted: “The International Monetary Fund has the know how on how to act in this kind of crisis. The European Union doesn’t have such a know how. For us it would be a lot more useful the cooperation with the fund in order to be able to provide complete transparency of the execution of our budget”.
The Athens stock exchange reacted with a nervous session to the decision of the European leaders and at the end of the day it ended with a small decrease in order to show that the political assistance has currently no value for the investors on the Greek market.