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Greece rushes to tie up loose ends for bailout tranche

Xinhua, May 30, 2016 Adjust font size:

Greece's government was in a rush to tie up the loose ends in the set of prior actions required by international creditors in order to disburse in coming weeks the long-awaited first tranche of the third Greek bailout program, local media reported on Monday.

Athens' goal is to finalize all pending issues by June 1, when the Board of Directors of European Central Bank (ECB) convenes, so that Greece will get the green light for the release of the first loans installment during June, "Nea" (The News) newspaper reported, citing Greek Finance Ministry sources.

Following the positive outcome of last week's Euro Group meeting in Brussels during which the bailout review closed after eight months of negotiations between the debt-laden country and its lenders, Greek officials agreed to make some amendments in the package of approximately 100 prior actions sought.

However, as teleconferences between cabinet ministers and representatives of lenders continued, according to "Nea", Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos sent a letter to EU Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, ECB and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials over the past few days, saying that some of these final changes cannot be made.

According to the report, Tsakalotos argued that all issues had been in depth debated during technical discussions and that the government has struggled with passing several tough bills in parliament lately.

The remaining thorny issues, according to the Greek Finance Ministry sources, seem to be aspects of the framework relating to the sale of non-performing loans by Greek banks to foreign distress funds, concerning further pension cuts for low-income pensioners and the operation of the new privatization fund.

Deliberations between the Greek government and institutions on the implementation of the recent Eurogroup's decisions are in progress and are expected to be completed soon, European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas stated on Monday in Brussels, Greek national news agency AMNA reported.

Greek government sources speaking in Athens on condition of anonymity reassured that everything will be in place by Thursday so that Greece will collect the first tranche with no further delays. Enditem