Brussels, 03/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - On 3 March, the European Commission said that it was “too early” for any discussion on the details, amounts or conditions of any follow-up arrangement for Greece.
Annika Breidthardt, spokesperson to the European institution, stressed that the financial assistance plan had been extended by four months for two reasons: to work on the successful conclusion of the final monitoring mission of the institutions (Commission, ECB and IMF) and to make time to discuss any follow-up arrangement. “At the moment, we are focusing on the first milestone” of last week's Eurogroup agreement, in other words the conclusion of the monitoring mission (see EUROPE 11264). She went on to say that the work on possible measures to bring the Greek debt down had not yet begun.
The Commission was asked to react to something its Vice-President, Valdis Dombrovskis, said in an interview with Bloomberg the day before. These words came shortly before the declarations of the Spanish Finance Minister, Luis de Guindos, referring to discussions on the third bailout plan of between €30 and €50 billion. “Greece may need an additional arrangement once the programme expires”, Dombrovskis said, adding that with the previous Greek government, the talks had focused on how Greece could return to the markets with the support of a precautionary credit line under the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). “Now this scenario, however, seems less likely, given the recent financial instability”, the Commission Vice-President explained. Another Commission spokesperson, Margaritis Schinas, stressed that the priority was to work to end the monitoring mission. He went on to say that he was not sure that Dombrovskis had been reported accurately.
The Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, appeared on the television channel Star TV on Monday evening to stress that Greece first of all needed to restructure its debt before discussing a new loan. He also said that he will present the Eurogroup next week with a package of six “detailed and fully evaluated” reforms. According to the Greek daily newspaper Capital, Varoufakis held a telephone conference on Tuesday morning with experts from the institutional trio. “We hope that two or three of these reforms can be applied imminently”, he said, expressing his hopes that if this is the case, the creditors would be able to free up some of the funds in order to avoid a default in March. “We are sure that our March obligations, especially towards the IMF, will be fully paid”, the Greek minister added.
According to the agency MNI, the Greek government's financial requirements for March will be close to €6 billion and will require the limit on the issuance of Greek short-term treasury bonds to be increased by around €2 billion. Observers do not expect the ECB to decide this week to agree once again to allow the Greek debt to be used as collateral for the loans to banks. (Élodie Lamer)