Greece gets two-month extension to bailout
Impasse between Troika officials and Greek government ongoing
Euro
group chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said it was vital that Greece ensures a
“rapid and full implementation of all the reform measures necessary to
conclude the fifth review”.
Greece
was given a two-month extension to its bailout on Monday, as Athens
announced it will hold presidential elections this month, three months
earlier than had been expected.
Euro group
finance ministers meeting in Brussels yesterday agreed to extend the
terms of the Greek bailout to February, with the hope of resolving the
impasse between Troika officials and the Greek government over the terms
of the fifth bailout review.
While a six-month extension had
been considered, it is understood that Athens was resistant to such a
long extension, amid continuing public resentment at the terms of the
bailout programme.
Following the agreement in
Brussels yesterday, the government in Athens announced it was bringing
forward presidential elections which will now take place on December
17th, December 22nd and December 27th.
Speaking
after yesterday’s meeting, euro group chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said
it was vital that Greece ensures a “rapid and full implementation of all
the reform measures necessary to conclude the fifth review”.
“On the basis of the work done it is impossible to positively conclude
the fifth review this year. On that basis we need an extension,” he
said, noting that a month-long extension would have been too short and
may have necessitated a further extension.
Greece
will officially table a request for extension on Tuesday, and the
decision will have to be approved by a number of national parliaments.
Mr
Dijsselbloem added that the euro group was still in favour of a
precautionary credit line for Greece when it exits the programme, but
this would only be decided when the fifth review mission was
successfully completed.
“A political decision on
the ECCL (enhanced conditions credit line) and the conditions that go
with that will be for another date,” he said.
Speaking after the meeting Irish Minister for State Simon Harris
said finance ministers had also tasked the EU institutions with
compiling a report assessing the progress made between the troika and
the Greek government to date.
He said that while
Ireland could relate to Greece’s situation as a programme country,
Ireland was also “aware of the challenges” of programme countries, and
was “very eager that the structural reforms that Greece needs to
undertake are carried out”.
On Sunday the Greek
parliament passed the country’s 2015 budget amid clashes between
political leaders and protests outside the Greek parliament.
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras hailed the budget as a sign that Greece was approaching the end of “an era of forced bailouts”.
Having avoided early elections earlier this year, elections are now
scheduled in Greece for March, with left-wing party Syriza, led by Alexis Tspiras, expected to perform strongly.
Speaking yesterday in Brussels, EU economics commissioner Pierre Moscovici said it was important to stress that the EU did not want to “punish” Greece.
However,
he said it was crucial that “root and branch reforms are made so that
we have the real modernisation of Greece’s economy so that we can have
jobs and growth.”
Greece is still waiting the
final disbursement of €1.8 billion under the EU portion of its bailout,
though the IMF part of its bailout technically runs until the second
quarter of 2016.
In total, Greece received €240
billion in bailout funds from its lenders in two bailouts, when its
spiralling bond yields forced the country out of the bond markets.
Troika
inspectors will return to Greece today, but Mr Dijsselbloem dismissed
suggestions that the review could be completed before the end of this
year.
Euro zone finance ministers also agreed
yesterday to endorse the European Commission’s plan to reassess the
budgets of France, Italy and Belgium in March, after the Commission
approved the budgets of all euro zone countries, except Greece and
Cyprus, last month.
In their review of the 2015 budgetary plans for member states, ministers stressed the need to continue fiscal reforms.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/greece-gets-two-month-extension-to-bailout-1.2030350
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