Brussels, 23/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - The fate of the second Greek bailout plan following the Greek general elections will be one of the subjects of the ministerial discussions at the Eurogroup meeting on Monday 26 January, although no formal decision will be taken.
When the finance ministers of the eurozone countries meet, they will be aware of the outcome of the Greek general elections to be held the day before (see other article). Even so, the new Greek government, which will probably be the subject of a coalition agreement, will not yet be in place. The ministers will therefore have “no clear indication of the precise intentions” of the future Greek authorities as regards the next steps in the second Greek bailout plan, which has been extended until the end of February, a European source said on Friday 23 January. However, the source went on to state that a further extension of the current aid plan “will probably have to be considered”. In order to do this, the monitoring mission of the rescue plan of the 'troika' (European Commission, ECB and IMF), which represents Greece's institutional creditors, will have to be tied up by the end of February, and any formal request to be made by parties with democratic legitimacy must be brought before the eurozone. “February will be a particularly interesting month”, the source noted, as “everything will happen then, irrespective of the results of the elections”.
Flexibility of the Pact. The European Commission will present the ministers with its recent communication on the flexibility laid down in the Stability and Growth Pact (see EUROPE 11229). During the technical work at the Council, the member states generally welcomed the clarifications made by the Commission's interpretation of the existing rules, even though a number of questions have been raised here and there, this senior European official told us.
The Commission's communication has three objectives: - encouraging an effective implementation of the structural reforms, taking account of their positive impact on the national budget; - promoting investment, particularly by neutralising the national contributions of the member states to the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), to be set in place in the framework of the 'Juncker' investment plan, with regard to the Pact; - taking better account of the economic cycle to ensure that budgetary efforts are stepped up in times of growth and reduced in times of recession. (MB)