Brussels, 24/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 21 November, the European Commission announced that the “troika”, of which it is a member alongside the ECB and the IMF, will meet representatives of the Greek government in Paris this Tuesday and Wednesday.
According to a Commission spokesperson, the aim is to see “what measures are still needed to make the progress required to allow the mission to return to Greece”. The preliminary discussions upon the return of the troika have been dragging out for several days, even though the parties want to see the mission concluded by 8 December, to allow the Eurogroup to make the necessary decisions on the follow-up to the programme, which comes to a close at the end of this year. According to the Greek press, one of the main stumbling blocks relates to the budgetary gap for 2015, which the troika has calculated at between €2 billion and €3 billion, whilst the Greeks do not believe that there will be any such deficit. (EL)