Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras made an unscheduled nationally televised address on Friday afternoon to announce that his government received “clear” commitments for the Greek debt issue, even as the ink dried on the Eurogroup’s approval to release a pending bailout loan tranche.
The leftist-rightist coalition government went into overdrive on Friday to present the decisions from Thursday’s Eurogroup as a decisive milestone on the road to economic recovery.
Tsipras, whose seen his approval ratings implode over recent months, on Friday echoed that line, saying an end to the bailout-linked memorandums ends on August 2018, the date originally envisioned for the third bailout to end.
“The road is now open for a permanent exit from the crisis,” he said, in an address that was broadcast by the state-run television network and carried by several private broadcasters as well.
With the agreement at the Eurogroup, Tsipras said, the path is open for a return to the markets for Greece’s borrowing needs, adding that for the first time after the “difficult compromise” of 2015 “we “feel vindicated”.
Without a bailout prospect after the current one ends in August 2018 the Greek state will, by necessity, be obliged to turn to the markets for its borrowing needs, unless it posts primary budget surpluses that are high enough to even cover the servicing of the external debt.
