Brussels, 15/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 14 November, Eurogroup stressed the urgent political need for Greece to meet its commitments in order to allow the troika (European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund) assessment mission to complete its work (that began in September). The country's finances are assured in the short-term.
Greece must produce results on four fronts, explained the head of Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, which are 1) the prior actions required for payment of a sub-batch of aid of a billion euros, initially scheduled for October; 2) measures to fill the budget gap for 2014 and 2015; 3) new structural reforms; and 4) improving governance of the privatisation programme. “This has been going on for some time now, stopped and restarted and stopped again. It's a political urgency, urgency of commitment, important that the review is finalised as quickly as possible”, said Dijsselbloem, adding that it would now be difficult for the Eurogroup to take a decision in December.
Greece will not need much finance at the end of the year, the Greek finance minister has said many times, and so will be able to pull a bit more of the blanket to itself, but the payment of the €1 billion sub-batch will only be made when the current assessment mission comes to an end, explained the director general of the European Stability Mechanism, Klaus Regling, adding that the glass was half full. Regling said the eurozone was aware of the work that had been done and the hard price both socially and politically: “We understand but have to press on” and follow up on what had been agreed as this is the only way of encouraging the green shoots of recovery that will start to emerge in Greece next year. Euro Commissioner Olli Rehn pointed out that “agreement does not depend on us alone”. He refused to give figures at this stage for the budget gap. The Greek media report that Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras says he is prepared to unveil structural reforms totalling €1.2 billion in order to fill the budget gap. (EL/transl.fl)