Photo: kathimerini.gr
At the request of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, the Greek parliament will discuss tonight the bad turn of negotiations between the government and the representatives of the creditors, and the extension of the bailout programme to Greece.
It is expected that during the debate Tsipras will ask the opposition parties to state whether they support the agreement with Eurogroup that was signed on 20 February and whether they will support the critical laws that the government is preparing to submit. According to unconfirmed information it is possible that an informal meeting of the leaders of political parties in Greece will be held by the end of the day.
Government sources say that the atmosphere of the negotiations between Athens and Brussels is good with regard to the view that the burden of recovery of the Greek economy has to pass from low income Greeks to those with high incomes. They also indicate that every detail is being thoroughly considered by requesting additional data for each of the proposals submitted by Athens.
The same sources indicate that the cabinet and the representatives of the creditors (the Brussels group, formerly known as the supervisory Troika – author’s note) have reached an initial agreement on the establishment of the appropriate policies that will displace the burden from low to high incomes. The government states that "this is totally contrary to what the previous government used to do, when only ordinary "victims" paid for the changes but not the people with higher incomes."
According to the Greek cabinet, the programme proposed by it has been elaborated and all amounts are calculated and defined with precision. It provides for state revenues of more than 3 billion euro in 2015, it does not include recessionary measures and the actions proposed by it can attain a budget surplus of 1.5% of GDP. The same government sources indicate that the proposals of Athens can even lead to economic growth of about 1.4%.
They emphasize that the details of the reforms that will be agreed with the creditors will be discussed with the technical teams of the representatives of creditors who are in Athens. Parallel to this they are adamant that, as stated by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, "we will not proceed to cuts in salaries and pensions and we will not allow mass layoffs and any other recessionary measures that will deepen the social crisis."
At the same time, representatives of the creditors argue that the list submitted by Athens is far from being defined as reform proposals. In statements to Reuters, a euro zone official states, "Greece did not submit a reform list on Friday. They just showed some ideas over the weekend. The discussions from Friday to Sunday were meant to help the Greeks prepare a list to be sent on Monday." He added, "We still look forward to receiving something on Monday."
According to the publication, in its current form, the list does not contain sufficient explanations in order to gain the trust of creditors. "It lacks details and much more technical work will be needed to turn it into something sufficiently comprehensive and credible to be put to the Eurogroup", another European representative told Reuters.
Asked how long it would take to form the final list, he replied that it would take "several more days", adding that it is not in Greece’s interest to submit a list that has no chance of being approved and that it would be better if Athens has more time to prepare it properly.
According to the economic edition Forbes the reform list of the Greek cabinet is not able to "make the grade," thus bringing the threat of an accident even closer. The author of the article, Tim Worrstall, writes, "We have at least one report, stating that the Greek proposals are not considered adequate. This is only confirming my long-held opinion that the most likely scenario is for Greece to not keep its promises and leave the euro, not by any sort of plan but almost by accident. This will happen because the negotiations will fail to reach an agreement. Tsipras, Varoufakis and others from SYRIZA think they can get more from the Troika, i.e. the Germans than they actually can. Their offers thus fall short as they offer what they think they can get, rather than what is likely to be accepted."