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Greece has implemented the basic actions required by the lenders in order to receive the next tranche of financial aid of 44 billion euro. The actions the government should take to meet its obligations to the lenders in connection with the fiscal consolidation have been specified with a series of ministerial decisions. In Brussels, however, there is still divergence of views on what actions should be taken to reduce the unsustainable debt in 2013.

The European Commission has not yet confirmed that the supervisory Troika’s report on the Greek economy will be ready to be presented at the meeting of finance ministers on Tuesday, 20 November. "We do not expect a final decision on Greece tomorrow," a spokesman for the German government said cited by Kathimerini. Finnish Finance Minister Maria Fekter is adamant that her country does not intend to provide any additional funds for the rescue of Greece, or to adopt a new debt haircut. "We have firmly stated that Greece cannot expect from us any additional funds or write-off of part of its public debt," Fekter said cited by Kerdos edition.

The signals that European politicians are sending are highly divergent from those of their Greek counterparts. On Sunday, after his meeting with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, Greek Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras said he expected from the coming meeting of Eurogroup that the final decisions would be taken on the payment of the financial aid. The government has introduced stricter supervision of the account with the Bank of Greece, which manages the support funds. The money in it will go to the repayment of the interest rate on government loans first and then, the remaining amount will be used to finance the budget deficit.

The government has committed itself to reduce the primary budget expenditures by 50% of the amount that has not been collected in accordance with the objectives and timing of the privatization programme. Revenues from privatization are directly related to the state's obligation to repay foreign debt maturities. The government must provide quarterly reports to the creditors for the cuts in the public sector. The ultimate goal that must be achieved is to cut 150,000 public workers by 2015. The arrangement involves the provision of a list of 15,000 employees by the end of the year and of five thousand workers every three months in 2013.

From now on, the government will provide in the annual budget additional reductions of 10% if the measures originally planned do not deliver the expected results. If the programme is over fulfilled and savings greater than planned are achieved, 30% of the difference will go to repay the foreign debt obligations.

Greek officials have pledged to tighten the financial control of ministries, public enterprises, local government organizations. The Ministry of Finance has the right to refuse additional funding for each of these organizations, if it does not fit within the prescribed annual budget or does not make the imposed payments within two months. If mayoralties and municipalities do not approve the budgets determined by the central government and the quarterly targets for collection of municipal taxes assigned by the Court by 31 January 2013, they will be left without money to pay salaries and cover other expenses.

If the difference between revenue and costs is over 10%, the Ministry of Finance will appoint a supervisor in the specific municipality or public enterprises, who will aim to put their finances in order. Managers of public enterprises will not receive a salary, if there is a gap in the performance of budgets on a quarterly, half-yearly or annual basis. According to the recommendations of lenders, Greece will have a supervisor in tax matters from next year onwards, who will oversee and supervise the collection of taxes and the implementation of the monthly objectives of tax departments.

By ministerial decision, the price of public transport and railway tickets will increase by 25% from the beginning of 2013 followed by a 9% increase of electricity bills, which is expected to be delayed by six months for the needy.