Galery

1

The technical teams that today entered the Directorate General "Accounting" have a specific task, namely to obtain the final data on the completion of the 2014 budget and the current implementation of the budget for 2015.

These data will serve as a basis to adjust the objective of achieving a primary surplus, however this adjustment does not aim at relieving the government in order for it to implement this programme but at determining the primary surplus that can be attained in view of the existing delays and the slow collection of state revenue. 

The data collected by lower-ranking representatives of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund who arrived in Athens last night will determine the course of the negotiations that started in Brussels yesterday. The talks will consider the first 10 measures submitted by Athens in two moves, namely seven last Friday and three on Monday at the meeting of euro zone finance ministers, until the members of the Brussels group collect the necessary data from Athens.

The Brussels Group, as the Troika is now called at the request of Athens, involves Declan Costello (European Union), Klaus Masuch (European Central Bank) and Rishi Goyal (International Monetary Fund). Having sent the data from Athens, the team will proceed to consider the issues which have remained unresolved after the negotiations, the most important of which are the following:

1. Changes in the VAT regime, which the previous Greek government restricted to the increase in the rate for hotels and which led to disruption last December.

2. Improving the efficiency of the tax mechanism and achieving further independence in the operation of the general secretariat for public revenue.

3. Reviewing the decision on settling overdue loans by paying 100 contributions, according to the new base planned by the government, which is more flexible and more favourable for debtors.

4. The actions to be taken in the social security system in order to meet the expected 2015 deficit of 2 billion euro.

5. Continuing labour market liberalization by adopting the best European practices in connection with the institutionalization of mass layoffs and the restoration of the lockout.

6. Continuing the privatization programme or finding measures to cover the annual revenue that will be used to reduce the government debt.

7. Improving the business environment by carrying out or improving the measures that the previous government has prepared but has not implemented.

The main issue of the talks, which will be the result of individual conversations over the next 45 days, will be the new target of primary surplus to be attained in 2015. Whether it will reach 1.5% of GDP or if it will be higher will depend on the data which the Greek government will submit and which will be the basis for the change in targets.

On the other hand, Athens is proceeding to a dialogue on the issues that Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis included in the proposal during the Eurogroup meeting on 20 February, which opened the way for a four-month extension of the rescue programme.

Negotiations until August

The Greek side has the ambition to reach a principle agreement within a week. Along with it, it expects that the allocation of 1.9 billion euro in profits on Greek bonds held by the European Central Bank, which are part of the tranche that amounts to 7.2 billion euro, be approved.

President of the Eurogroup Working Group Thomas Wieser does not seem to agree with this schedule. He said before the Austrian television that the situation in Greece would stabilize but it would happen up until August.

Wieser added that Greece owed billions of euro that it would have to pay in the coming months, and that the government seemed to have found sources of funding. He seemed to be quite aware of the plans of the Greek government, "We believe that there are certain budgetary reserves as well as some reserves in social security funds and public institutions", said Wieser, concluding that things for Greece would be easier after mid-August until the end of the decade, as the payments during this period would be small.