Brussels, 14/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission says it expects the Greek parliament to “shortly” pass the 13 measures agreed upon on Friday 11 December to allow the payment of the next sub-instalment of aid, worth a billion euros.
The Greek parliament's economic committee examined a series of measures on Monday 14 December ahead of their examination by the full parliament on Tuesday and a vote on Tuesday evening.
Following adoption of these measures, the “institutions” (European Commission, ECB and IMF) will report to the Euro Working Group as soon as they have finished assessing them, explained European Commission spokesperson Annika Breidthardt on Monday. The Greek media talk about a Euro Working Group meeting on Wednesday that would allow disbursement to be made at the end of the week.
Friday's agreement foresees that Greek banks will be allowed to sell off their toxic loans with the exception of mortgages for primary residences, consider lending and loans to SMEs, which will be regulated by 15 February.
Electricity company ADMIE will be divided up. The Greek state will keep a 51% share, with the remainder being sold to the private sector. An outline of the privatisation fund agreed upon by eurozone heads of state has now been designed. It will contain the financing of the current Greek privatisation fund, the Greek financial stability fund, real estate and State holdings in public services.
European Stability Mechanism (ESM) director general Klaus Regling said in an interview with Greek newspaper To Vima that the IMF: “I think that the IMF's financial contribution is likely to be small but this is not the main issue.... I am a bit surprised about the uncertainty expressed by the Greek side.”
Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras said recently that he had the impression that the IMF's financial contribution would not be needed, and mentioned the IMF's unconstructive attitude. Klaus Regling thinks Greece could partially roll over its debts on the money marketed by the end of 2018. Asked whether there would be extra conditionality about debt relief for Greece at the end of the Greek bailout in 2018, the ESM director general said: “I am sure that this will be discussed because we are talking about very long timeframes. At the same time it is important to realize that Greece as an EU and a euro area member state is already subject to a number of surveillance frameworks such as the Stability and Growth Pact or the Excessive Imbalance Procedure. They should be respected in any case.” (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)