Strasbourg, 02/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - At a press conference in Strasbourg on 2 July, the Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras, said: “On the prediction for Greece that we will need any additional loans, I do not believe we will have any problem”, referring to the budget gap for 2015 forecast by the troika of lenders (European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund).
“Let me remind you, last September primary deficit for 2013 as foreseen by the troika earlier this year, they were predicting a fiscal gap for 2014. We are already doing much better than predicted and certainly no fiscal gap is going to take place. Now they're predicting a fiscal gap for 2015, I believe we will prove them wrong again”. He added that no forecasts expected Greece to need to take out new loans. Citing troika figures, he said that Greece would see economic growth of 2.9% of GDP in 2015 and 3.7% in 2016.
Earlier, in a debate on the Greek Presidency of the Council of the EU in which he had been criticised by Greek opposition MEPs, Samaras said: “I have to say that if we were to rewrite now our road map out of the crisis, everyone accepts we would do it differently and I was among the ones who criticised the policy mix right from the very beginning. But my position as Prime Minister of my country after July 2012 was not to criticise a policy mix or to engage in an academic discussion about the perfect path to stabilisation. My problem was to save my country, given all the mistakes of the past and all the structural problems of our Presidency”.
Green light expected on Friday for disbursement of €1 billion on 7 July. Following a meeting at the end of June, national experts at the EU Council of Ministers are expected at a meeting on Friday to say that Greece has made progress over the milestones for May required to allow the disbursement of €1 billion of aid. Sources in Greece said on Monday that it was “almost done”. The aim is now for the €1 billion of aid to be given the nod by the Eurogroup on 7 July. A second instalment of aid, also for €1 billion, will come later as six of the June milestones still need to be achieved.
The Greek media report that the government has announced that profit margins for pharmacies will be reduced from 21% to 15.7%. This measure was one of the milestones for May.
Disruptions were expected in electricity supplies in Greece on Thursday due to a strike by workers at the public utility body Public Power Corporation (PCC) in protest at the plan to divide PCC up and privatise one part of it, “Small PCC”. This privatisation of part of PCC is another of the milestones. (EL)