Brussels, 17/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 17 October, the European Commission expressed confidence about the results of the negotiations being pursued between Greece and international donors (the European Central Bank, the Commission and the IMF), better known as the “troika”. According to a spokesman, “an agreement could be found in the next few days but this would depend on settling questions still pending”.
These questions involve labour market regulation, which the troika would like to solve. The demands expressed by donors from Greece in this area have caused anger among the partners of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. At the end of a meeting with the latter, the leader of Pasok, Evangélos Venizélos, and his counterpart at the Moderate Left (Dimar), Fotis Kouvélis, ruled out any changes in this area.
According to Kouvélis, recommendations from donors to Greece have nothing to do with budget consolidation. He also said that labour market regulation was a domestic issue for Greece to tackle. The leader of Pasok said that the troika was “playing with fire” and that the measures advocated would not help the country's competitiveness in any way. He also accused the troika of intentionally delaying discussions and demanded that the prime minister provide a report on the situation to his European counterparts during the summit on 18 and 19 October.
The Greek finance minister, Yannis Stournaras, highlighted the “spirit of co-operation” that dominated negotiations despite possible tension in the future. He also indicated that the minister for labour, Ioannis Vroutsis, was going to propose solutions in view of overcoming the last remaining disagreements.
According to the French economic newspaper Les Échos, the troika is calling for the immediate sacking of 15,000 civil servants, a shift from a 5 to 6 day working week of 40 hours, the end of wages indexation based on seniority in companies and a cut in redundancy payments by half.
The Greek press also reported on Thursday that according to estimates from the ministry of finance, without a new two-year deadline for reaching its budgetary targets, Greece would need a package of €18 billion in savings and not €13.5 billion.
The payment of the next tranche of €31.5 billion in aid will be decided on the basis of the troika's conclusions, which is expected in November.
According to a European Commission spokesperson, the rumours concerning a Eurogroup meeting at the end of October are groundless, and for the time being no finance ministers' meeting is planned in October. According to a source at the Greek Treasury, this question will, depend on Greece. (EL/transl.fl)