After the European Summit on Friday 10 March, Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras said he was confident that obstacles would soon be lifted and agreement can be reached on the second March monitoring mission.
‘We will arrive at a comprehensive solution for the Greek problem very soon, in April,’ he said at a press conference. Greek media report that the comprehensive solution, the way Tsipras sees it, will include measures to reduce Greece’s public debt.
To a reporter asking whether the Greek PM had asked the IMF director general Christine Lagarde to commit to helping Greece, Alexis Tsipras simply said that he was in constant communication with the IMF. He has asked the Washington institution to be clear about its position and has asked Lagarde for IMF participation to not be ‘à la carte,’ in other words for the IMF to not demand more budget measures from Greek without pressurising Europe to get it to reduce the Greek debt.
On Thursday, a spokesman for the Greek government, Dimitris Tzanakopoulos, said that the compressive solution would include modifications in budget policy from 2019 onwards and clarification of debt-easing measures in the medium-term. He said the government’s aim was for labour market talks to be concluded before the Eurogroup meeting of 20 March.
He added that once they had reached a comprehensive agreement, the ECB would discuss incorporating Greece in the Quantitative Easing programme and he thought there would be a positive outcome.
The institutions representing the country’s lenders left Athens on Thursday explaining that there had been progress despite problems, including the labour market and budget measures to be taken from 2019 onwards. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)