EP seeks to supervise Greece’s bailout program, after Tsipras’ request

The number of Greece’s supervisors is apparently growing: The European Parliament is seeking a role in the supervision of the Greek bailout program. Incredible? Yes! And why is that? Because ex Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras sent a relevant request to EP President Martin Schulz on August 20th 2015, just hours before resigning, as it seems.

Now the European Parliament – Schulz – and the European Commission – Juncker – are set to discuss the EP’s role in the supervision of the Greek bailout programme.

Worth noting and mentioning is that the EP’s involment went almost unnoticed in Greece.

Yesterday, Thursday, EP fraction leaders gave the green light to proceed.

Parliament president Martin Schulz received a mandate on Thursday (3 September) from the leaders of the assembly’s political groups to “explore” with commission president Jean-Claude Juncker “the possibilities” of such an involvement.”

According to Euobserver,

Tsipras wrote to Schulz, asking for “the direct and full involvement of the European Parliament in the regular review process regarding the implementation of the loan agreement” between Greece and its creditors – the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“I deem it politically imperative that the sole European institution with a direct popular mandate acts as the ultimate guarantor of democratic accountability”, Tsipras wrote.

The basis of the discussion between the two presidents will be the so-called two-pack regulation, which sets up a monitoring and surveillance mechanism of eurozone countries.

In his letter, Tsipras mentioned article 3 of the two-pack, which says parliament should be kept informed and provides possibilities for exchanges of views with officials from the commission or the member state under surveillance.

“It is not a surprise”, Schulz said, “because the troika report at the end of the parliament’s last mandate already asked for a permanent structure of accompaniment on a parliamentarian level [of] all the actions of the institutions in the framework of the programme”.

The discussion between Schulz and Juncker could lead to a mechanism that gives the parliament more than the right to be simply informed about implementation of the bailout programme, but less than a deciding role in the monitoring of it.

“The commission, in liaison with the ECB and, wherever possible, together with the IMF, shall be entrusted with monitoring compliance with the conditionality attached to the financial assistance facility”, the commission told EUobserver in an email, suggesting MEPs will not have the same powers.

“What we want is a binding solution in the form of an agreement between the two institutions. A non-binding understanding is not what we want to get.” (full article Euobserver.com)

Now some mean Greeks wonder whether there was some kind of deal between Tsipras and Schulz before this arrangement, as the first – Tsipras – strives to occupy a place in the social-democratic political spectrum of Greece and Europe, and the latter – Schulz –  has already shown in the past that is is more than eager to have a powerful say in Greek politics.

PS Rumors that Greeks stopped getting on the nerves of Martin Schulz have yet to be confirmed