European Stability Mechanism (ESM) managing director Klaus Regling referred to a “road map” for Greek debt relief, pointing to the communique issued after a landmark Eurogroup meeting in May 2016, a venue where the first review of the ongoing Greek program (third bailout) was essentially rubber-stamped.
Nevertheless, he said this “road map” still lacked details.
Regling made the statement in an interview with “Proto Thema”, a mass-circulation Sunday paper and website, and in answer to the increasing pressing question of the Greek debt’s sustainability.
While concrete differences between the IMF and European creditors remain over the issue, for the bewildered leftist government in Athens any temporary relief measures this year will be a fillip, given that it has little to show in terms of economic growth this year besides a “tax tsunami” and pension cuts aimed at meeting memorandum-mandated fiscal targets.
On his part, Regling merely reminded that short-, medium- and long-term measures are envisioned, while repeating creditors’ leitmotif of any relief directly linked to meeting the current bailout program’s targets – which extend through 2018.
He said the Eurogroup of EZ member-states will further boost Greece, but warned that Europe will not offer more debt relief than the one the country “truly needs”.
