Brussels, 03/07/2013 (Agence Europe) - The eurozone sees neither a “need” nor an “opportunity” to meet after 8 July if the mission of the troika in Athens crashes and burns by Friday 5 July, a European source declared on Wednesday 3 July. At stake is payment of a further tranche for the next three months.
In this scenario, described as “highly unlikely” by the same source, the troika (European Commission, ECB, IMF) of Greece's creditors would merge its current monitoring mission with the next one, scheduled for October and likely to be “tough”, postponing until then any decision of the creditors regarding the payments of the tranches of aid. And the IMF could raise the question of the “global funding”.
In order to conclude the current mission of the troika in Athens, the parties have two challenges to tackle. The first is the budgetary deficit linked to costs in the healthcare sector, but this is not expected to be enormous. According to the Greek press, the accounts of the public healthcare insurance fund EOPYY has revealed a gap of €1billion. The Greek government is believed to be planning to use the unused funds of the envelope for bank recapitalisation to plug budgetary gaps which may crop up elsewhere. A new audit on the banks in September will shed greater light on this.
The second challenge relates to public sector employment. In this area, progress “has been less than spectacular”, the same European source stated. The troika is apparently unconvinced by the restructuring of the public audiovisual service ERT, whereby 2000 of 2700 former employees would be re-recruited for a limited period, the daily newspaper Ekathimerini reports. In the view of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the minister for administrative reform, the drastic cuts in civil service headcount would be carried out over “several months”.
The next tranche of aid to Greece could be divided up into a number of amounts which would be paid subject to the implementation of specific milestones. According to the same European source, Athens will not need all of the €8.1 billion referred to in the Greek press in July and August. This figure, however, is a result of pure speculation, another European source told us. If no payment was made between now and October, Athens would still be able to raise short-term bonds on its own.
Writing off the debt? Nein danke. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has refused to consider writing of part of the Greek debt, in an interview with six European media organisations. She voiced her hopes that the sustainability of the (Greek) debt would continue to be a given. (EL/transl.fl)