Brussels, 16/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 16 November, the European Commission announced that “considerable progress” had been made over the weekend with the Greek authorities towards resolving the final outstanding issues regarding the prior actions to be carried out to unblock the next sub-tranche of aid of €2 billion and free up the funds of the support plan for bank recapitalisation.
Annika Breidthardt, spokesperson to the European Commission, said on Monday that a telephone conference of the Euro working group will be held this Tuesday 17 November to “take stock” of these latest advances. A source from the institutions explained that it is hoped that the Greek parliament will vote on a full package of measures on Thursday 19 November, to allow the Euro working group, which is meeting the next day to discuss the Commission's opinions on the draft national budgets, to unblock the tranche of aid and access to the envelope of €10 billion reserved for bank recapitalisation. However, the Eurogroup hopes that these decisions on the payments will be made no later than early this week.
Talks are also reported to be continuing between the parties on measures to replace the VAT increase on private education with a measure with the same budgetary impact, and on questions relating to the management of non-performing bank loans and the protection of households against property foreclosures.
Issues related to bank governance and the role of the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF) are reported by the Greek press to be the subject of an agreement. (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)