You thought that just because the Greek government passes creditors’ prior actions through the Parliament, the issue is over? Of course, not. The so-called reforms need to be implemented and furthermore more prior actions need to pass through the Parliament, so that Greece can receive the 1 billion euro bailout tranche. All only this task is fulfilled, creditors can proceed with the program review.
The Eurogroup today sent 3 messages to Greece:
- vote for the second set of prior actions by December 15th
- vote by beginning of January the whole package concerning the pensions
- The pensions voting must have the consent of the Parliament, i.e. the approval of the Government but also the opposition parties.
Shock & Awe: Dijsselboem (left) shows Greek FinMin Tsakalotos (right) how much ‘Reforms” Greece has done so far. Other EU FinMins are happy not to have their feet stuck in Greek shoes
Prior to the Eurogroup meeting Jeroen Dijsselbloem made a very short review of the Eurozone performance in the year 2015.
“The good news was that the economic recovery became stronger in almost all of our countries except one. The bad news was that we had spent a lot of time on Greece. But that program is also back on track,” Dijsselbloem said.
Eurogroup Press Release on Greece
The institutions and the Greek Minister for Finance, Euclid Tsakalotos, briefed the Eurogroup on the way forward for implementing Greece’s European Stability Mechanism (ESM) programme, which was agreed last August.
The Eurogroup expects the Greek authorities to swiftly implement the legislation agreed under the second set of milestones. This would unlock the disbursement of €1 billion by the ESM.
Ministers were informed that the recapitalisation of the Greek banking sector will not require more than the amount of up to €10 billion currently available under the programme for this purpose. This is significantly lower than the envelope of up to €25 billion earmarked for bank recapitalisation at the beginning of the Greece programme. The funds for recapitalisation would be disbursed by the ESM to the Hellenic Financial Stability Facility.
After the meeting, the Eurogroup issued a press release where it set its tasks for the first semester of 2016: bolstering economic growth and job creation.
Dijssebloem’s press conference after the meeting is here.
Tsipras is a real revolutionary: The harsher the measures the faster revolts will grow to a storm