Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos has reportedly send a letter to EU Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, IMF’s responsible for European Program, Poul Thomsen, and ECB’ Benoit Couere informing the country’s lenders that Greece cannot implement all prior actions and prerequisites requested for the release of the 3. bailout tranche.
According to exclusive story by daily TA NEA, in his letter Tsakalotos stressed that
“some of the outstanding issues will not be implemented by the Greek government, either because the members of the government have already struggled with difficult votes, either because the issues that the institutions want have been exhausted with the technical discussions.”
A total number of eight prerequisites will not be implemented “considering that on the substance there is no reason for this to happen.”
Citing “reliable information line,” Ta NEA notes that the government intends to implement all the outstanding issues, which are about 150, but most of them concerning adjustments to formalities, but it does not respond to eight of them.
One of the 8 prerequisites the Greek government does not intend to implement has to do with the Privatization of Independent Power Transmission Operation (ADMHE). Creditors want from the government to submit “a specific Plan B in case the privatization fails.”
Another issue refers to the “special payrolls” (Armed Forces, police, coast guard). The government refuses to withdraw the provision voted in the context of the omnibus bill that provides the possibility to ‘unfreeze’ promotion and wage increases for the special payrolls.
Third issue reported is the lenders’ demand to “abolish pensions give for reasons of accidents also during work.”
According to state broadcaster ERT, creditors want such pensions to be replaced via “private insurance.” Which, IMHO, is a joke in a country hit by recession, austerity, a tsunami of direct and indirect taxes, and social contributions hikes to demand that people pay even more money for a private insurance in addition to their regular social contributions which depending on the sector can be more than 500 euro per month.
TA NEA does not mention the other five prerequisites.
At the same time, Greece and lenders continue negotiations aiming to conclude the program review by Wednesday, one day before the ECB board meeting to allow the “waiver’, i.e. the eligibility of Greek bonds to be used as collateral.
Main points of conflict between Greece and lenders are reportedly the sale of red loans with guarantee of the Greek state and the ‘poverty allowance’ for low-pensioners (EKAS).
The Greek government hopes to have the bailout tranche released in the second half of June.
PS not only the government is exhausted by the prior actions & the prerequisites. People are exhausted and moreover drained too. The new Value Added Tax hikes are just outside the door. On 1. June the VAT will rise from 23% to 24%. Is the 1% hike a tragedy? It is. Because the end price hikes will not be 1%. A friend, owner of a mini-market, was telling me yesterday: if something is sold at €5.20 I cannot have price tags showing €5. 21. Therefore, I’ll have to round it up, most probably I’ll sell it at €5.50.
What do you mean? Of course pricetags can be 5.21. In the supermarket, milk is 0.94 Euros a liter no? Let’s not exaggerate.
Yes, higher VAT is bad, but since SYRIZA wants the state party to continue, then revenues must be raised to pay for the bloated public sector and pensions.
And yes, in civilized countries, workers are covered by private insurance for accidents, life insurance policy. What, you want the state to pay for that as well? I think you need to adjust your communist state rethoric a bit, it is what got Greece in this mess in the first place, regardless of you always blaming Schauble for everything wrong in Greece.
France is not a civilized country then because we have benefit for work accidents here.
And let’s not start with France. It is looking more and more like Greece no.2, it has serious structural problems and without reforms is about to die.
All of the EU is looking more and more like Greece, including Germany. This is something that Schaeuble and his fellow lunatics will never understand, because they have zero grasp of how economies function. Germans need to appoint politicians with actual skills and abilities, instead of continuously repeating their historically major and self-humiliating errors of judgement.
I do not always agree with your comments, but this time a 100%.
Sorry, but I must disagree here… An insurance for work accidents as part of the social insurance makes a lot of sense. A statutory accident insurance for workers exists in Switzerland, Germany, France and other European countries – and I can’t see anything “uncivilized” in a well working social system, it’s quite the contrary (except you take countries like the USA as a role model).
Private insurances can be a nice addition, but people must be able to pay for it and (as KTG already writes) this is hardly possible under the current circumstances in Greece. And btw, I hear the same from my friends in Greece who are hard working taxpayers but feel fed up with a system that demands but gives nothing back in return. Sure, it is silly to blame Schäuble for everything that ever went wrong in Greece. But he is the leading figure in the European austerity politics and jointly responsible for the current situation in the EU, and this is for sure not what I imagine as a “Union”. To criticize such politics has nothing to do with “communist state rethorics” and it is also not per se anti-german. I am from Germany and though all this 4th Reich crap gets on my nerves, I don’t feel offended if somebody criticizes “my” government. Austerity has also here left its ugly marks, but what goes on in Greece is simply madness. How shall a recession ridden country be cured if more and more people have no money left to spend? The whole strategy is illogical and reduces itself ad absurdum.
Rip Off is part of “civilized” bananashit, guess, “private” injurers are even more creative to find ways to not pay. It’s also very interesting to hear such apeshit in Greece as everybody knows how many people die or suffer from “accidents” due to profit-greedy Manchester-capitalistic bastards that never pay and go to jail for their murders.
Also I think internet shouldn’t be allowed for people that still think it’s 1952 when Charlie Chaplin was kicked out of his homeland for being a “communist” witch or maybe the diaspora-ministry should kindly explain on their website that in Europe it means to hunt “communism” that someone was lying under a tombstone for 60 years.
Actually most of the European countries, including Allmighty Germany and free-market UK pay pensions for disabled workers:
They must be communists – or you must be a joke.
I said having an accident at work! Not being disabled! God help us! The way it should be is every employer must have employee liability insurance so if their worker gets injured, the company’s insurance pays them disability, regardless of what they get from the state as disabled aid. So the worker won’t pay for it, the employer will! We have proper lefties on this forum!
The term liability insurance was neither mentioned in KTG’s article nor in your first comment. Instead we can read of the demand to “abolish pensions given for reasons of accidents also during work” and of the plan to replace these with private insurances. Liability insurance paid by the employer would be indeed a progress, additional private insurances at the expense of citizens, who can hardly pay their monthly expenses, certainly not.
However, in “civilized countries” employer’s liability insurance does not necessarily replace the state’s accident insurance for which also the workers pay with their social insurance contributions. The rule of the game should always be quid pro quo: Citizens pay their taxes and social contributions and get something in return – a working infrastructure and health care system, financial benefits in times of need etc. etc. But if you have to pay and pay and get nothing in return… well, then you don’t need to be a “leftie” to see that something is very wrong.
Tell it the FBI
Are you even remotely aware that nearly 40% of the Greek workforce is self employed? (versus 11% in Germany) And from where will employers of the other 60% of the workforce get the money to purchase liability insurance? The common blindness of employees who think capitalism is perfect and socialism is horrid- not a clue as to what it costs to operate a business. Just collect a paycheck and everything else is pure, friggin magic.
Do a bit of research and you will find that ignorant Troika imposed policies such as this are among the reasons that so many small businesses in Greece have gone out of existence since 2010.
Not all prerequisites can be met -> no money can flow, simple, isn t it?
I don t know why anyone still tries to sign agreements with Greece if they have zero intention of keeping them.
“Agreements” are void as they are reasoning on laws that were voted illegally as no-one can read 1000 pages of as it is a must against his voters who elected him or her but hey, Greece could sell islands and get 200 billion without interest, just make such an agreement and then see what the constitution, the army and the population say about it…
If it’s a leftists government why not better have EKAM doing real jobs instead of EKAS, send them to take hostages worldwide, kidnap the rich. To make it easier and more fun for EKAM it should be the decision of the officers themselves whom they’d like to host and who gets the most cash out of will be a hero with the coolest monument.