Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos on Friday tried to fend off the most recent demands by Athens’ institutional creditors by saying that Greek law does not foresee “conditional measures”, referring to a Eurogroup decision citing measures worth 3.6 billion euros in case the Greek government does not meet primary surplus budget targets by 2018.
Speaking at a press conference in Amsterdam after a Eurogroup meeting, he said it’s not possible, at least under current Greek law, to legislate for something that may occur, hypothetically, in the future.
Nevertheless, he said negotiations are still ongoing with lenders to find a “commitment mechanism” in order to boost credibility – ostensibly vis-a-vis Greece – for European creditors and international investors. He added that several proposals are on the table to achieve this.
Tsakalotos, a left-leaning UK-based academic before taking up politics with the ruling SYRIZA party in Greece, said an “emergency package” of measures stems from differences in opinion between institutional creditors over the expected effectiveness of tax hikes and supplementary pension cuts already decided.
He also said the IMF does not believe measures will achieve a 3.5-percent primary budget surplus, in relation to GDP, in 2018, but rather 1.5 percent.
