Pierre Moscovici, the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, said he was "confident" that a new tranche of aid will be granted to Athens by the April Eurogroup upon his arrival at the Eurozone Finance Ministers' meeting on Monday, 11 March.
While the disbursement of this tranche of aid was initially planned for this March Eurogroup (see EUROPE 12204/25), further efforts are still needed from Athens to do so, say euro area finance ministers.
This aid, amounting to €1 billion, corresponds to: - the recovery of profits made by the European Central Bank and the national banks on the ‘SMP’ and ‘ANFA’ operations to repurchase Greek public debt during the sovereign debt crisis (€660 million), and; - the abolition of interest rate margins attached to debt repurchase tranches.
This conditional aid tranche was decided in the June 2018 agreement on the exit strategy for the third financial assistance programme to which Athens is subject until August (see EUROPE 12046/1, 12077/1).
It is dependent on the prior implementation by the Greek authorities of certain reforms. Despite the "progress" and "positive developments" attested by Mr Moscovici, three preliminary measures still require decisions, in particular the establishment of a new system of principal residence in Greece.
In fact, as expected in recent days (see EUROPE 12210/15), in view of the progress still to be made, the Eurogroup decided not to give the green light for the disbursement of the aid tranche on 11 March. But Mr Moscovici estimated that the work that will be done in the coming days will make it possible to record such a disbursement by next month. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)