The Minister of Finances Yanis Varoufakis has persisted upon the adoption of 70% of structural reforms contained in the existing bailout agreements, with the remaining 30% considered “toxic”.
In accepting such a possibility though, the European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker has demanded that the toxic 30% be replaced by equal, alternative measures.
Sources suggest that the Greek government is willing to adopt the following structural reforms of the existing bailout agreement:
New Ethics Code for banks
Changes in the Judicial Code
OECD report on administrative burden
Taxation of collective investment vehicles
Broadening the definition of tax evasion and tax fraud
Changes in personal and company insolvency
Reforms in wages
Changes to legislation on the budget
Addressing legal hurdles in competitiveness, as noted in OECD report
Changes to investment permits
Changes to the government’s Accounting Plan
Additionally, the Greek government is said to have declared that it will not accept the following prerequisites for the completion of the troika’s final review:
VAT reform
Reduction of non-wage benefits
Changes to collective dismissal legislation
Changes to union actions legislation
Reform of pension system
To read more, please visit tovima.gr/en
There were hopes on Thursday that Greece and the eurozone might be edging toward a deal after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, attending his first European Union summit, agreed for government officials and representatives of the country’s lenders to find common ground ahead of Monday’s Eurogroup.
Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and his eurozone counterparts failed to issue a common statement at a Eurogroup that ended early on Thursday morning. However, Tsipras met on Thursday in Brussels with Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem and agreed that representatives of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund should work on the details of a possible deal in the buildup to the Eurogroup on Monday.
“[We] agreed today to ask the institutions to engage with the Greek authorities to start work on a technical assessment of the common ground between the current program and the Greek government’s plans,” Dijsselbloem tweeted. This, he said, would pave the way for crucial talks between eurozone finance ministers next Monday.
"We leave today having made some significant steps," said Tsipras at a late night press conference following the summit. "The technical teams will work over the next few days to prepare the ground for Monday's Eurogroup."
Tsipras insisted that he did not feel "isolated" at the EU Council and said that he explained to his counterparts that the government wants to combine the mandate it has received with Greece's obligations as an EU member. But he insisted that Athens would not accept the continuation of the Memorandum of Understanding or the troika in its existing role.
"The memorandum as we knew it is over," he said. "The same goes for the troika."
To read more, please visit ekathimerini.com
Wednesday's Eurogroup ended without agreement between Greece and its eurozone partners but also without a joint statement on how to move forward. "We explored a number of issues, one of which was the current program," Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem told a news conference in the early hours on Thursday in Brussels.
"We discussed the possibility of an extension. For some that is clear that is preferred option but we haven't come to that conclusion as yet. We will need a little more time."
It appears that the two sides had agreed to release a joint statement but that last minute objections from the Greek delegations, which was led by Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and Deputy Prime Minister Yiannis Dragasakis, led to the process being abandoned.
Dijsselbloem said that the all the eurozone finance ministers would reconvene on Monday, which is the last planned Eurogroup meeting of the month, to reassess the situation but there would be no discussion between experts or visits to Athens in the meantime.
Varoufakis made a brief statement to reporters after the meeting and played down a failure to reach a common position. He said he believed a "healing deal" could be reached on Monday.
He denied that the sticking point had been an insistence from Greece's eurozone partners to extend the existing bailout and said there were no threats towards Greece during the meeting.
"We explained whey this bailout is not working," he said. "We want a new contract with Europe."
To read more, please visit ekathimerini.com
Greece's SYRIZA-led government has won a confidence vote in Parliament, ahead of high-stakes talks in Brussels with bailout creditors.
Lawmakers voted 162-137 for Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' government, elected on January 25 on a platform pledging to radically overhaul austerity in the financially struggling country.
Earlier, Tsipras struck a defiant tone, saying there is "no way back" in Greece's quest to rewrite its bailout commitments.
To read more, please visit ekathimerini.com
Under the organizing title "Breath of Dignity", standing in front of parliament, protesters unfurled banners reading "Bankrupt but Free" and "Stop Austerity, Support Greece, Change Europe." Satellite demonstrations took place in Brussels, at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, in Venice and elsewhere in Europe.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras tweeted a picture of the Athens protest, saying: "In the cities of Greece and Europe the people are fighting the negotiation battle, They are our strength."
Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis was attending a meeting of his euro zone peers in Brussels to press for a new debt deal and an end to many of the tough reforms required by the bailout deal.
Protesters in Athens singled out German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has led demands for Athens to keep promises made by the last conservative-led government under the deal.
To read more, please visit thetoc.gr/eng
By Theo Ioannou
Snow has interrupted traffic on the Kastoria-Florina and Florina-Kastoria provincial road network via Vitsi, while motorists on the Arnissa-Vorra Pellas sky resort are advised to use snow chains.
Snow is falling on the mountains in northern Greece and in Thessaly, in the central part of the country, with temperatures around 0 degrees Celsius.
According to forecasts, the bad weather will continue until Tuesday with heavy snowfall and low temperatures in the eastern and northern parts of the country, especially at higher altitudes.
Snow is expected in the Attica region as well, with the surrounding mountains Pendeli, Parnitha and Immitos already turning white.
To read more, please visit thetoc.gr/eng
With a difficult week looming for Greece and amid rising pressure from creditors, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Sunday presented his government’s policy program in Parliament, pledging to implement pre-election promises to revoke austerity measures, though not all at once.
“We only have one commitment – to serve the interests of the people, the good of society,” he said, adding that it was the “irrevocable decision” of his government to implement campaign promises “in their entirety.”
The premier said the government would not seek an extension to Greece’s bailout, noting that it would be an “extension of mistakes and disaster,” and reiterated Greek demands for a “bridge” deal to be put in place until a “mutually acceptable agreement” is reached with creditors. “We do not intend to threaten stability in Europe,” he said, adding, however, that he would not “negotiate” the country’s sovereignty.
Tsipras said his government needs “fiscal space” for a discussion on restructuring Greece’s debt and a new deal, adding that increasing austerity would only exacerbate the problem.
He pledged to replace a unified property tax (ENFIA) with a new tax on large property and to increase the tax-free income threshold to 12,000 euros from 5,000 euros. He also vowed to introduce a fair tax system and crack down on tax evasion and corruption. Collective wage bargaining will be restored, Tsipras said, adding that the minimum wage will return to 751 euros a month from 586 euros, though gradually from now until 2016.
Greek authorities would also reinstate at the end of the year the so-called 13th pension for retirees earning less than 700 euros a month, Tsipras said.
A chief priority remains tackling the “humanitarian crisis,” he said, pledging free electricity and food to households that have fallen victim to the “barbarous measures” of recent years. In the civil service, immediate rehirings will include dismissed Finance Ministry cleaners, school guards and university administrative staff, he said, noting that this would not burden the budget and will come from planned hirings for 2015.
The premier also pledged to reopen ERT, the state broadcaster that was abruptly shut down in June 2013 by the former government, and to launch a parliamentary investigation to determine how Greece entered the memorandum. On privatizations, he said the government welcomed private investment but rejected a “selloff,” adding that utilities would not be up for sale. In a dig at Germany, he said it was a “historic duty” for Greece to seek war reparations and the return of a forced loan during WWII.
To read more, please visit ekathimerini.com
Despite pressure from eurozone officials to agree to a further extension to the existing bailout, the Greek government insisted Friday that it would not accept its partners’ offer but would instead propose the terms of a bridging agreement to see it through the next few months. An extra Eurogroup meeting is due on Wednesday, when Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis will set out to Greece’s partners how the government envisages covering its funding needs over the next few months until a more comprehensive agreement between all parties is reached.
Government sources were adamant Friday that Greece would not accept the outstanding 7.2-billion-euro bailout tranche, which would require the SYRIZA-led coalition to complete a set of structural reforms.
Athens’s plan is based around being given permission to issue more treasury bills after reaching the 15-billion-euro limit it had agreed with the troika. It also wants to receive 1.9 billion euros from profits the European Central Bank made as part of its SMP program, which involved purchasing Greek bonds on the secondary market. This 1.9 billion is included in the 7.2-billion-euro installment.
The indications from Brussels Friday were that eurozone officials would not accept these proposals. It is thought that Varoufakis will present a commitment by the new Greek government not to take any unilateral action while the bridging deal is in place, to commit to fiscal targets and structural reforms proposed by Athens.
Varoufakis held a lengthy meeting Friday with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Deputy Prime Minister Yiannis Dragasakis.
To read more, please visit ekathimerini.com
Greece respects European Union rules and will find a solution to its economic problems within the framework of EU law, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Wednesday, adding there was no agreement yet, but talks were going in the right direction.
Tsipras and his Syriza party won an election in January on promises of negotiating a debt write-off, the reversal of some reforms and ending fiscal consolidation -- provoking a stand-off with its international creditors like the euro zone.
"I'm very optimistic that we will try to do our best in order to find a common, viable and mutually acceptable solution for our common future," Tsipras said on his first visit to Brussels and after talks with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Council President Donald Tusk and European Parliament President Martin Schulz.
"Our goal is to respect the people's sovereignty in Greece and the clear mandate of our people. At the same time we respect the rules of the European Union. We want to recorrect this framework, not to smash this framework and we believe that in this framework we could find a common viable solution," he said.
To read more, please visit thetoc.gr/eng
The next few days leading up to the European Summit scheduled for the 12th of February are going to be critical for Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, whose main priorities will be to manage expectations and preserve the peace in Greece and Europe.
An unnamed government official told To Vima on Monday evening that “we may see smoked for the Commission’s building on Wednesday”, in reference to Mr. Tsipras’ meeting with Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels on the 4th of February. The Greek Premier is then scheduled to meet French President Francois Hollande, while Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is rumored to see Wolfgang Schäuble next week, ahead of the Summit.
The goals are clear, to establish a channel of communication with Paris, Rome and Berlin and then to define the negotiation framework between Athens and the Commission. After Mr. Tsipras discusses his police statements next week, he will hope to attend the Summit in a friendly, rather than hostile, environment.
Meanwhile the German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be meeting with US President Barack Obama early next week, indicating that there will be a wealth of behind-the-scenes debates and developments.
To read more, please visit tovima.gr