Brussels, 19/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 19 May, the European Commission denied all knowledge of rumours that its President, Jean-Claude Juncker, sent a draft agreement on the reforms to be carried out by Greece without endangering its public finances on the evening of the previous day.
The Greek newspaper To Vima reported the existence of a document which had been sent to the Greek authorities, proposing to unblock €5 billion in outstanding support in exchange for less stringent conditions, notably on the level of primary budgetary surplus (not including servicing of the debt) to be achieved, but providing for the highly controversial real estate tax to remain in place.
“We cannot confirm the existence of any such paper and we really don't know where that story has come from”, announced Commission spokesperson Margaritis Schinas. Juncker himself assured the newsagency Bloomberg that these rumours were false, whilst confirming that he was personally involved in the efforts to avoid a breakdown of negotiations between Athens and its creditors. He said that these talks could conclude at the end of this month or early next. He went on to state that the Eastern Partnership Summit to be held in Riga on 21 and 22 May was not the right forum to reach an agreement, but added that discussions on the sidelines of the summit were possible. On Tuesday, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, said that she expected decisive progress to be made in the relevant forums, particularly in the 'Brussels Group'.
Schinas explained that more efforts were needed to bring the positions of the parties closer together on the outstanding issues. “We consider that progress is being made, albeit at a slow pace”, he reiterated. The Greek authorities seem more optimistic. “We are very close” to an agreement, “I'd say it is a matter of one week”, said the Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, in an interview on Monday evening with the television channel Star.
These declarations are in stark contrast to the concern expressed by the chair of the S&D group at the European Parliament, Italy's Gianni Pittella. Pittella, who is “very worried”, warned of the “danger” of failing to reach an agreement, arguing that the eurozone should adopt a more conciliatory approach. On behalf of the ALDE group, Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium said that the key players in the talks should come before the EP to justify their actions. Last week's Conference of the Presidents of the EP agreed to invite the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, the presidents of the Commission, the Eurogroup and the ECB and the coordinators of the economic committee of the EP for talks on the Greek dossier behind closed doors (see EUROPE 11314). On Tuesday, the ECB said that it had not yet received any such invitation. (Elodie Lamer)