Brussels, 23/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - Before midnight on Monday 23 February, Greece is to send in its list of proposed reforms. If this list is deemed acceptable by the institutions (Commission, ECB and IMF), it will open the door to the official validation by the Eurogroup, this Tuesday, of a four-month extension of the Greek financing programme (see EUROPE 11259).
At midday on Monday, the Commission denied that it had already received Greece's copy, but AFP reported that it had understood from sources close to the talks that the list was already in. Speaking on the Greek television channel Skai, a government spokesperson, Gabriel Sakellaridis, explained that the list was the subject of upstream discussions with Greece's partners to ensure a positive assessment by the representatives of Athens' creditors. “The measures will aim to tighten up Greece's administration and fight tax evasion”, the Minister of State, Nikos Pappas, told the television channel Mega on Sunday evening. According to the German newspaper Bild, the government is planning to bring in €1.5 billion by putting an end to the trafficking in fuel, €800 million by fighting tobacco smuggling, €2.5 billion by taxing the rich and an additional €2.5 billion by bringing in unpaid tax from individuals and businesses.
The Commission stressed that the government had until midnight (on Monday) to send its final list and that permanent contacts had been maintained in the meantime. The three 'institutions' are to return their verdict either late on Monday, or on Tuesday morning, to allow the Euro group to discuss the matter in a telephone conference. If the list is felt to be insufficient, a physical meeting of the Eurogroup may then be held.
In order to seal the deal with the Eurogroup, Greece has promised, amongst other things, not to take any unilateral measures during the four-month extension of the programme. The minister for productive reconstruction, the environment and energy, Panayiotis Lafazanis, is, however, quoted by Le Monde as stating that the draft laws on a moratorium on the seizing and auctioning of main residencies, the management of banks' doubtful receivables and the staggering of tax debts into 100 monthly payments were ready to be presented to the national parliament.
In Greece, the opposition has mocked the agreement reached by Syriza on Friday with the Eurogroup. “No propaganda mechanism or pirouette can hide the simple fact that they lied to citizens and sold illusions”, said Evangelos Venizelos, leader of the Socialist party, Pasok, quoted by the Greek press. Kostas Kragougounis, press spokesperson of the centre-right party New Democracy, said that the new government had returned to the point “at which we left off, but under considerably worse conditions”. In particular, criticism also came from a respected member of Syriza, Manolis Glezos, who is best known for having removed the Nazi flag from the Acropolis in 1941, under the nose of the Germans. “Changing the name of the 'troika' to 'the institutions' and the 'agreement' memorandum (…) by no means changes the situation from before”, the MEP said in an opinion written in Brussels. “I would like to ask the Greek people to forgive me because I also participated in this illusion”, he added. A government spokesperson, Sakellaridis, dismissed these comments as ill-informed and incorrect.
The EIB welcomed the fact that it had increased its funding for projects in Greece. The EIB “does not apply country quotas but evaluates funding opportunities based on the number, nature and quality of the projects that are submitted to it”, Hoyer stressed in a written statement. These considerations will also apply to the way the projects are to be supported under the Juncker plan, which is designed to draw down €315 billion in private investment over three years (see other article). (Elodie Lamer)