Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos expressed optimism on Tuesday that an agreement paving the way for a review of the Greek program can be achieved by the next Eurogroup meeting in mid March.
“We’re in a procedure where everything we discuss will be included in a final text,” Tsakalotos said in Parliament, during a debate on economic policy.
According to the UK-trained and based economist, who left British academia to dive into Greek leftist politics, the remaining steps to be taken are the well-known conclusion of the now very delayed review; talks over measures and counter-measures; and medium-term measures for debt relief.
He added that any intervention requested by creditors will come within a framework of structural reforms and not fiscal reforms.
Tsakalotos, who attracted his fair share of sharp criticism by the opposition over the past month, also maintained that the most recent Eurogroup precluded “more austerity” for the Greek program.
In a subsequent “unofficial” response, main opposition New Democracy charged that Tsakalotos freely admitted that high primary budget surplus targets (3.5 percent) will be in place after 2018, “which means additional and continuous austerity measures”.
ND pointed out that Tsakalotos had previously said high fiscal targets would “asphyxiate” the Greek economy and cause conditions of “constant and long-term stagnation”.
ND also charged that the finance minister admitted that no agreement was achieved in last week’s Eurogroup.
