Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis vowed that Greece will not bow to EU conditions on Covid-19 aid. He said that the EU recovery money cannot have “troika-style conditionality.
He said that Greece has “matured a lot” since debt crisis and will set its own agenda. There will there will be no return to the sort of EU oversight imposed during the debt crisis, he added.
In an interview with Fnancial Times, Mitsotakis said that he will not accept strict EU conditions on the use of coronavirus emergency aid, in a sign of the difficult negotiations ahead for the bloc’s leaders on its proposed €750 billion recovery fund.
Mitsotakis said that he would not countenance a return of the strict and unpopular oversight imposed on his country by the “troika” of EU, European Central Bank and IMF officials during the Greek debt crisis, “forcing us to do reforms” even though “there was never really any domestic buy-in”.
“Greeks have matured a lot,” he said. “And we want to do our own reforms.”
Sweden, Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands are opposed to the European Commission’s plans for the recovery fund and are pushing for so-called “conditionality” to be applied to EU money to ensure it is spent to improve competitiveness. German chancellor Angela Merkel who supports the recovery fund has said the money must be used to “future proof” each economy.
Mitsotakis said a six-monthly review of economic performance carried out by the European Commission was sufficient.
“I don’t think any additional strict conditionality is necessary,” he said, adding that every southern EU member state regarded it as “politically unacceptable.”