Brussels, 10/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - So far, contacts between Greece and the European Commission “have not been very fruitful”, Mina Andreeva, a spokesperson to the European institution, acknowledged on Tuesday 10 February, adding that expectations of an agreement being reached on the next stage in Greece's second bailout plan this week were “low”.
This Wednesday 11 February, the extraordinary Eurogroup meeting aims to clear the ground to work towards an agreement on Monday 16 February on the medium-term financing of Athens, as the country's current bailout plan expires at the end of February.
On Monday, the details of the Greek government's strategy leaked to the press. Under its proposed scenario, the transition financing it has already spoken about would come via an €8 billion increase of the upper limit for the issuance of Treasury bills and the payment of €1.8 billion of profits on-lent by the ECB ('SMP' programme for the buy-back of government bonds). This transition financing would give Greece until the end of August to outline a new agreement, to enter into force on 1 September.
The aim would be to keep 70% of the memorandum of understanding signed by the previous government, replacing the other 30% with ten measures decided upon in cooperation with the OECD, according to the Greek daily newspaper Kathimerini. However, the Eurozone considers the other 30% to be key measures. As the new government of Alexis Tsipras has already said, the objective will also be to reduce the budgetary surplus objective, not including debt servicing (1.5% of GDP instead of 3% in 2015 and 4.5% in 2016). “Greece must maintain an adequate primary surplus. But yes, the future level of this surplus will be part of the discussions between Greece and its European partners”, the French minister, Michel Sapin, said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Point (our translation). The aim will be to reduce the debt through the trade in bonds.
The German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, denied press reports that the Commission plans to propose a six-month extension of the programme. Speaking from Washington, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, stressed that Greece had loan programmes with the eurozone and with the IMF, and that these programmes were “the basis of any discussions we have”. The position of the eurozone, which will thwart Greece's ambition to obtain transition funding, is that any loan granted must be accompanied by conditional measures to be applied.
At a press conference of the United Left group at the European Parliament on Tuesday 10 February, which discussed the results of the elections in Greece, Pablo Iglesias (GUE/NGL, Spain), called on the European authorities to accept the olive branch being held out by the Greek government. The leader of the movement Podemos, the Spanish counterpart of Syriza, said that “what's at stake is not the fate of the Greek government, but the future of the EU”. He added: “anybody shutting themselves off in failed dogmatic positions are burying the European project. We have to do recognise that there are different ways of doing things”. (Élodie Lamer with Marie-Pauline Desset)