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These statements did not correspond to the fact that became known in the late afternoon yesterday, namely that Yanis Varoufakis and his close collaborator George Houliarakis would leave Brussels together. As chairman of the council of economic experts, he is responsible for carrying out the technical negotiations, which are to show whether the new measures (which are already 10 in number) promised by the Greek government to its lenders will be sufficient in the current financial situation of Greece or if new measures will be required to supplement them.

In all cases, however, sources close to the government stated today that the negotiations, both political and technical, would be held in Brussels, "without excluding the likelihood of teams made up of representatives of the institutions visiting Greece in order to collect specific information." As stated by the same sources, "these teams, the visits of which will be coordinated with the Greek side, will include lower-ranking officials, and of course, they will establish contacts with similar officials from the Greek side."

With eyes turned to the European Central Bank

The aim of the Greek government is for the European Central Bank to approve at least a 3 billion euro increase in the limit of public debt through the issue of new government securities with a maturity of 4-13 weeks and the limit for lending to Greek banks from the Emergency Liquidity Assistance, as soon as it becomes clear that a reliable dialogue about the new measures has started. The Greek government also seeks to obtain in advance 50% of the frozen 7.2 billion euro that are allocated for the country or at least 1.9 billion euro that Athens wants the European Central Bank to immediately repay as they are profits derived from Greek bonds.

Auctions of bonds at increased interest of 2.7%

Today’s auction of three-month government bonds ended with an increased interest rate of around 2.7%. The interest rate reached 2.5% during the previous auction whereas the amount obtained today from the auction was 1.3 billion euro.