Brussels, 07/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 7 December, the Eurogroup once again called upon Greece to stick to the deadlines for the implementation of the measures to pave the way for a further tranche of aid to be paid under the third Greek bailout package.
The president of the Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said that the second list of prior actions needed to be implemented by mid-December. The Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Pierre Moscovici, referred to the end of the week. Dijsselbloem said that in addition to the payment of €1 billion, completing this second list of measures would allow work to focus on the major fiscal and structural reforms that need to be concluded in the framework of the first monitoring mission, such as pensions reform.
The ministers welcomed the fact that considerably less public money than initially forecast would be needed to cover the requirements of the Greek banks, specifically €5.5 billion instead of €25 billion. On Tuesday, the European Stability Mechanism announced that it was paying out €2.71 billion to recapitalise the National Bank of Greece. The money which is not needed will stay where it is, Dijsselbloem explained. Moscovici added that certain small Greek banks might have requirements to cover.
As for the €50 billion privatisation fund to be set in place to recapitalise the banks, service the Greek debt and stimulate investment, the plans need to be on the table before Christmas. As the banks have lower requirements than anticipated, the size of this fund will be one of the issues for discussion. (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)