Brussels, 29/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - In an interview with the Greek radio station Sto Kokkino, which is affiliated to the Syriza movement, on Wednesday 29 July, the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, did not rule out the possibility of early elections.
“If I do not have a parliamentary majority, we will be forced to go to the public”, he explained.
Some 30 MPs from his party rejected the first two packages of measures voted upon on 15 and 22 July as a preliminary to the opening of negotiations on a third bailout plan (see EUROPE 11365). Tsipras himself said that he would in any case not take ownership of the programme which he felt was not the answer , to be applied in exchange for financial support over three years.
New measures need to be adopted so that the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) can pay out a first tranche of loans, all being well before 20 August, when Greece is due to pay back €3.2 billion to the ECB. There is nothing unusual in this so-called prior action procedure, which has been followed in recent years in the framework of financial assistance plans.
A eurozone source said that the measures to be adopted in Greece must come from the list of reforms which Greece itself submitted to its partners ahead of the Eurogroup of 12 July of this year (see EUROPE 11356). Tsipras warned on Wednesday that he would apply no more and no less than what is laid down in the agreement of the eurozone summit of 13 July (see EUROPE 11358).
The Commission has said that it is pleased with the constructive cooperation it has observed in Athens, where technical discussions on the third bailout plan have started. The mission chief of the IMF, Delia Velculescu, postponed her arrival in the Greek capital, amongst other things because the Council of the IMF was meeting in Washington this Wednesday. Velculescu also represented the IMF in the framework of the Cypriot bailout plan. The Commission still appears to have faith in an agreement which will allow a disbursement from the ESM before 20 August. If this scenario comes to pass, a Eurogroup would be held on 11 August. Other, more pessimistic, voices are already anticipating a further dip into the EFSM, the fund managed by the Commission on behalf of the 28 member states. This has already been mobilised to prevent Athens from missing a payment deadline on 20 July (see EUROPE 11363). (Elodie Lamer)