At the Eurogroup meeting in Bratislava on Friday 9 September, the eurozone finance ministers once again urged their Greek counterpart, Euclide Tsakalotos, to speed up the implementation of the commitments made in the framework of the third Greek bailout programme.
After the summer break, Greece was supposed to receive €2.8 billion from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), but the 15 prior actions required of it in return have not been fully implemented.
According to European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici, only two prior actions have been carried out in full. As for the 13 others, this does not mean that Greece has made no progress at all, he however clarified. The commitments that Greece still needs to come into line with "relate to the fundamental elements of the programme", such as privatisation, the reform of the energy market and the creation of an independent revenue collection authority.
The Greek government seems to be dead set on applying these measures by the end of the month. "In a perfect world, quite frankly, we would have liked a bit more progress than this at this stage", Moscovici said, but stressed that Athens had stepped up its efforts in recent days. His teams, along with those of the other 'institutions' responsible for assessing the implementation of the programme, will be on the ground next week for a preparatory mission, with a second monitoring mission of the Greek bailout plan to start in October. Finalising the expected reforms within the deadlines set "would make discussions easier" for this second mission, Moscovici went on to explain.
The availability of the of €2.8 billion expires at the end of October, the Director General European Stability Mechanism, Klaus Regling, has warned.
"It's not new that, with Greece, we see the implementation of the measures that have been agreed towards the final phase of the agreed timeframe", added Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister. The president of the Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, welcomed the fact that the Greek minister had pledged a swift completion of the work.
Budget situations in Spain and Portugal. Moscovici was moreover asked about the freezing of the structural and investment funds (ESI funds) for Spain and Portugal, a measure on the table as neither of the two Iberian countries respected their trajectory to reduce their government deficit between 2013 and 2015 (see EUROPE 11619).
At the end of July, the Commission proposed cancelling the financial penalties against Madrid and Lisbon under the excessive deficit procedure, but the 'freezing of European funds' plank has yet to be discussed. The European Parliament has called for structured dialogue over the issue (see EUROPE 11619), a stage which is permitted under European legislation and that Dijsselbloem wants to see as soon as possible.
The decision to be made by the Council on the basis of a proposal from the Commission "may be staggered, firstly suspending the funds and then lifting the suspension" once the necessary efforts have been made by the two countries, Moscovici explained. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)