/ world today news/ Greece won the cancellation of the measures to cut pensions and increase taxes within the framework of the agreement on the continuation of financial assistance from the EU.
This was stated to journalists by a government source, commenting on the results of yesterday’s extraordinary meeting of the Eurogroup and Greece, at which the agreement in question was reached.
“The main goal of strategic planning has been achieved in the time (4 months) within the framework of the temporary agreement, which gave us two opportunities to conduct negotiations. The blackmail of the last days has failed,” said the source.
The Greek government believes that, thanks to the agreement reached, “recession-leading measures adopted by the previous government, such as pension cuts, tax increases, and the obligations of the excessive and unrealistic primary surplus of the state budget, have been canceled.” In addition, “such a non-institutional formation as the “troika” (international creditors), which issued orders and had acquired excessive power, was liquidated.”
We remind you that yesterday evening, the Eurogroup and Greece reached an agreement on the extension of financial assistance to Greece at an extraordinary meeting. The Eurogroup has obliged Greece to prepare by the evening of February 23 (Monday) a list of reforms for compliance with the obligations assumed by Athens, reads the announcement for the extraordinary meeting in Brussels of the Eurogroup and Greece on the issue of continuing financial assistance to our southern neighbor. According to the announcement, “the list of reforms is based on the existing agreements. The European and international institutions will give their first assessment of whether the proposals are sufficient grounds for the preparation of the next report (on the state of the economy and reforms in the country). When interacting with the institutions (EU, European central bank-ECB and IMF) this list will be further processed and finally approved by the end of April”, the announcement also states. It specifically emphasizes that “only the approval of this report” will allow Greece to receive “the next tranche of the remaining funds under the EU Stabilization Fund (EFSF) program”. Moreover, the release of this money “will also have to be approved by the Eurogroup”.
The document specifies that “the authorities of Greece have confirmed their readiness to comply with financial obligations to creditors in a timely manner and in full”.
“The new Greek government will present its list of reforms for the next interim stage, in which it will prioritize those of common interest, namely the fight against tax fraud, corruption, restructuring of the state administration and dealing with the humanitarian crisis,” he said on in turn a Greek government source.
At the same time, the Greek portal “Proto Theme” writes that the agreement between Athens and the Eurogroup on the extension of financial assistance does not mention austerity measures.
In turn, the president of the Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said that Greece “can change its budget policy, but all the measures it will adopt must remain within the agreed (with international creditors) target budget indicators”. The head of the Eurogroup stressed that “they are not expected to change”.
According to the publication, the request of Greek Finance Minister Yannis Varoufakis (pictured) to extend the aid was approved after 4 hours of consultations with Dijsselbloem, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and IMF Director Christine Lagarde.
Varoufakis’ approved request was supplemented with clarifications on some points, Greek officials said.
In addition, according to data from the Greek side, “an agreement was reached on flexibility in the implementation of the program (for aid), which was a request of Athens, and there are no references to austerity measures”.
A “proto theme” explains why the Europeans agreed to extend the credit agreement only until the end of June. “The reason is that in July-August the Greek country has to repay a debt of 6.7 billion euros to the ECB, and the Europeans want to have a lever to pressure Greece. In addition, by the end of June, Athens has to repay the IMF loans for 5.2 billion dollars ./TASS/AFP/RIA Novosti
Athens / Greece
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