Brussels, 12/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 12 October, the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Pierre Moscovici, announced that he would be travelling to Greece this week. He will be in Athens on Wednesday 14 and Thursday 15 October, where he will meet the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, and also the finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos.
Moscovici confirmed that the Greek dossier had been a main subject of discussions in Lima last week, at the G20 Finance. “The key to the rest is still the implementation of the economic adjustment programme”, Pierre Moscovici explained, when asked about a possible future reduction of the Greek debt. He explained that this discussion had not taken place in Lima. “When the time comes, we will present analyses to see how the debt can be sustainable and how to reduce the servicing of the debt”, he continued, repeating the well-known sequence: implementation, monitoring mission of the institutions in November, and then the launch of discussions regarding the debt.
The Vice-President of the Commission with responsibility for the Euro, Valdis Dombrovskis, reiterated that the Commission was not one of Greece's creditors and it is up to the eurozone states, who are, to decide “what is acceptable” to bring the debt down, Dombrovskis explained. Both European Commissioners stressed that the objective was still to have the IMF on board, it having suspended its decision as to whether to participate until it can see progress on the part of the Greek authorities on reforms and discussions on the Greek debt. The Greek press reported on Monday that the national parliament would be voting this Saturday on an initial raft of measures related to the payment of a sub-tranche of €2 billion. (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)