Brussels, 26/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - The troika of lenders (European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund) may return to Greece early next week.
The government of Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has been reshuffled following the withdrawal of one of the three coalition partners, Dimar (a centre-left party, see EUROPE 10872). Pasok, the Socialist party, has gained ground, now in charge of four ministries (rather than the previous two) and its leader, Evangelos Venizelos, is now Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. Samaras is calling for political stability and loyal implementation of the reform programme, which is a precondition for disbursement of the next instalments of aid.
On Monday, the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) announced that it has paid Greece €3.3 billion to cover budget needs and debt-servicing. This means that only €14 billion of the total €144.6 billion aid package remains to be paid out. The Greek media say that public television company ERT, whose closure led to Dimar's withdrawal from the government, will re-open shortly with some 2,000 of the previous 2,700 employees, due to be whittled down to 1,000.
Trichet berates IMF. Former ECB head Jean-Claude Trichet has waded into the debate about mistakes made in the first Greek bailout, which arose following a report from the IMF saying that the Greek debt should have been written down much earlier. In an interview with Reuters Insider Television, Trichet said: “I have absolutely no recollection that the IMF called for anything that would be stronger ... in terms of conditionality or the scheduling. It seems to me that there is some kind of reconstruction of what has happened”. (EL/transl.fl)