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Greek lawyers refuse to meet with the representatives of the supervisory Troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. At a meeting of the presidents of bar associations in Greece they decided with 33 votes for and only 9 against that the Troika is not a legitimate institution and its presence in Greece is illegal. For their branch interests the lawyers would contact only the Ministry of Justice, which is allegedly the sole legitimate authority.

The supervisory Troika’s experts arrived last week and began to inspect the Greek ministries and financial institutions. As usually, their conclusions will be announced during the traditional press conference at the end of their mission. The three heads of the mission - Paul Thompsen from the International Monetary Fund, Servaas Deroose from the European Commission and Claus Masuch from the European Central Bank - arrive in Athens tomorrow. They have the tough job to convince the members of the Greek government in the seriousness of the conclusions of the extraordinary meeting of finance ministers held under the auspices of the President of Eurogroup Jean-Claude Juncker in Luxembourg on Friday night.

And they were really serious, because the finance ministers of the most developed economies in the euro area together with their counterparts from Greece and Portugal for the first time officially recognized that Greece would not be able to enter the global financial markets in 2012, or in other words – it would need a second package of financial support, and on the other hand - that it would be extremely difficult to convince the European taxpayers and voters to support this second package. The first financiers of Germany, France, Italy and Spain expressed their disapproval of the exceptionally slow pace with which the Greek government is reforming the public sector and the economy.

Georgios Papakonstantinou tried to explain the deviation from the objectives of the Memorandum of financial support with the deep recession in the Greek economy. His European colleagues agreed with him, but insisted that the situation has deteriorated further due to the government hesitation to carry out unpopular reforms. They made it clear that the new financial support would not be provided before the cabinet of Papandreou uses all available options. And they are sharp reduction of the public sector, vigorous reform of the economy and real privatisation, and not the planned by the government selling of state enterprises’ shares and concessions for the state property.

The results of the inspection of the heads of the supervisory Troika will become clear next week. The finance ministers of the eurozone countries will meet again on the 16^th of May, this time in full, in order to hear the views of all the countries that give the largest amounts to save the Greek economy. Just a day later, on the 17^th of May, in Athens will begin the annual Round Table with the Greek government organised by the Economist magazine, during which financiers from around the world will analyze the fiscal future of the troubled Mediterranean country. But before that, everyone expects the coming Friday, when Eurostat will report the data for the GDP of the eurozone countries for the first quarter of 2011. The previous report of the European statistical experts registered a 6.6% decrease of the Greek GDP in the fourth quarter of 2010. On Friday we will find out the truth about the recession during the first quarter of 2011. Also on Friday, the European Commission will announce its reports on the economies of the European Union.