Something is moving towards an agreement with the Eurogroup partners with Greece reportedly to prepare a bridge program until August. Greek media report Monday afternoon about a “ten reforms plan” in order to cover some parts of the current bailout program and that Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis works out the compromise plan on the basis of letter by European from Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, that the Greek side considers as “first sign of good intention from Brussels.” For Juncker’s proposal see below.
The Greek proposal foresees among others:
1) a primary surplus of 1.5% of GDP as in 2014 and not the foreseen 3% for 2015 that the Greek side considers as “unrealistic.”
2) settlement of the debt with “swaps” and “not expiring” bonds. [KTG: not sure about ‘not expiring’, not sure if it means the ‘perpetual bonds’]
3) Eleven billion euro from the FSF to be used for consolidation of ‘red loans’ in order to facilitate the banks and the economy to restart.
4) Measure to tackle the humanitarian crisis,
5) The bridge plan has two sections one until June 1st (Plan A) and one until September 1st (Plan B).
6) The financing gap of the extension should be covered with the issue of T-bills worth up to €8 billion, part of the outstanding €7.2 billion bailout reimbursement. Furthermore, the Greek side considers as “obvious” that €1.9 billion from the European banks profits from Greek bonds should be given to Athens. [KTG: I think the €1.9 billion proposal was recently rejected by the ECB.)
7) Political flexibility as for the amount from Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA)
Finance Minister Yannis Varoufakis said Monday at the Parliament, that Greece ““will accept 70% of reforms outlined in current bailout if the lenders agree to suspend or remove the remaining 30%”” of the demands fro structural reforms. This 30% of reforms could be replaced by other proposals in cooperation of Greece with the OECD.
Secretary-general of OECD, Angel Gurria, is expected in Athens, tomorrow, Tuesday.
Roadmap, according to To Vima newspaper:
The draft agreement includes ten key reforms and could be considered a technical extension from the side of Brussels, but be called Bridge Program by the Greek side.
This bridge-agreement to be valid until the end of August could include 2/3 of the reforms required by the current memorandum of Understanding, without 1/3 of reforms, the Greek governments considers as “toxic.”
Abolishment of the Troika should also be on the table. Greece wants to negotiate directly with the EU, the IMF and the ECB and not with their Troika representatives.
According to the roadmap of the Greek government, the Greek proposals will be presented at the extraordinary Eurogroup on Wednesday, the EZ partners will discuss the plan, and if the other countries of the eurozone agree, finalization of the plan on Monday, February 16th 2015.
Secretary-general of OECD, Angel Gurria, is expected in Athens, tomorrow, Tuesday.
According to Proto Thema, Juncker’s proposals are:
3. Utilization of public property, with completing the privatization of the Piraeus Port Authority.
4. Reduction of debt with a technical -Swaps- exchange system that will take effect as from September 1, 2015.5. Target of the Greek side is that the primary surplus remains at 1.5% of GDP.
other sources: capital.gr, euro2day.gr, zougla.gr, capital.gr.
It looks much less revolutionary now : no debt haircut, maybe returning privatizations. Number of fired employees returning to their jobs should be small… Instead of speaking to Troika directly – speaking to EBC, IMF and IC – so Troika indirectly (they have phones, it is just a change of names).
But this rhetorics of confrontation, I think – unnecessary. For example- why to speak about war reparations now, when Greece desperately needs money. It would be better to speak about it in a year, when there is a compromise.
Of course, everybody will lose on disorderly Grexit and a compromise is needed.
PS. Even if euro looks like a failure – but I would opt for a planned exit, not a disorderly catastrophic one.
We will see – Tsipras is slowly blinking, but I think rhetorics is too strong.
Greece already tried it the nice way, with polite rhetoric, and as recently as 2 months ago, the EU insisted on no relief. Here we see huge results.