Brussels, 15/07/2013 (Agence Europe) - Greece has three days left to take the measures required if it is to receive the batches of aid it needs to get through the summer because the eurozone gave the country until Friday 19 July to demonstrate that it was achieving results in implementation of its structural adjustment programme.
The democratic left party, Dimar, that left the coalition government last month, warned on Monday 15 July that it would not vote for the 110-section new law on Wednesday, but it is still possible that Dimar parliamentarians will vote for most of the 110 sections separately. Antonis Samaras' reshuffled government has a slight majority, with 155 of the total 300 seats.
After the vote on Wednesday, Greece will be visited by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaüble on Thursday. The Greek media say that he will sign deal on behalf of German public bank KfW to join a new investment fund with capital of €500 million. Ekathimerini says €350 million of this will come from the European Structural Funds and the Greek public investment programme, and the remainder from KfW and the European Investment Bank.
Samaras is said to have asked the country's four biggest banks to provide more cash to the real economy to ease the credit crunch. After a recent fact-finding mission, the troika of lenders (European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund) said that the banks had taken advantage of the capital they had received to pay back their loans to the ECB rather than lending it on to the real economy. (EL/transl.fl)