Creditors have demanded from Greece a written pledge that the Christmas bonus for low-pensioners is a one-off payment and not a “13th pension.”
The Euro Working Group that was supposed to find out whether the Christmas bonus was compatible with the ‘third bailout agreement’ could not take an unanimous decision on Tuesday. Therefore, they asked Greek Finance Ministry Euclid Tsakalotos to send them a written pledge.
The country’s creditors consider the measures of a social aid of maximum 850 euro to low-pensioners and the scrapping of Value Added Tax hike to islands hit by the Refugee Crisis as “unilateral actions not conform with the bailout agreement.”
According to Greek media, Tsakalotos sent the written pledge on Wednesday morning, however the content of the pledge remains a sealed secret.
KTG unsealed the secret of the written pledge 🙂
The creditors did not accept the verbal pledge of Deputy Finance Minister Giorgos Houliariakis that the Christmas bonus was an extra payment given only once.
The EuroWorkingGroup is to hold another meeting today via teleconference. a eurogroup meeting -also via teleconference – may follow, depending on the EWG outcome,
Sources claim that Germany wants several “equivalent measures” now, for the case the creditors will find out next April that Tsipras’ social measures dug a hole in the fiscal program.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Tuesday, that the Christmas bonus will be paid together with the pension on December 22nd.
We all know what Alex will do: impose quadruple the amount spent in new taxes. I wonder whether the whole thing was a plot by his master (Wolfie) to be used as an excuse to raise the level of looting.