Brussels, 14/09/2012 (Agence Europe) - Greece's international lenders will not be able to decide until the second half of October about payment of a new instalment of aid to Greece to the tune of €30 billion, said the head of Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, on Friday 14 September after an informal Eurogroup meeting. “The main message is that we will try to finish everything by the end of October,” commented Greek finance minister Yannis Stournaras, saying that there was a meeting of minds among Greece and the troika of lenders (the European Commission, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank) currently on a fact-finding mission in Athens to assess progress in applying the second Greek bailout. French economy minister Pierre Moscovici, who was in Athens on Thursday 13 September, said that he hoped a 'structural response' would be found in October to the Greek question.
The eurozone finance ministers want Greece to identify and introduce nearly €12 billion of measures to fill the gap in the budget in 2013 and 2014. The ministers want robust measures to cover public spending and overhaul the Greek economy. The troika's report should be available for the next Eurogroup meeting on Monday 8 October.
The IMF director general, Christine Lagarde, said it was possible for Greece to cut its public deficit and introduce structural reforms, and it is too early to tell whether the country's public debt reduction targets are on track (cutting the debt from 165% to 120% of GDP by 2020) because the troika has only been fully operational in Athens for a few days now. She said it would be premature to say whether Greece would need more money, contradicting statements by a high-ranking IMF official a few days earlier that Greece's international lenders would have to be prepared to cough up more cash in addition to the aid already promised. (MB/transl.fl)