Press reports out of Athens on Wednesday refer to a letter of intent sent to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that is attached with a list of 21 commitments that the Greek government promises to implement by June 2018.
The letter, reportedly signed by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and Bank of Greece (BoG) Yannis Stournaras, includes a pledge to finally legislate a change in the way industrial actions are decided and taken in Greece, i.e. a majority of all workers instead of a plurality of those present at a general assembly.
Additionally, the government promises, according to the same reports, to cap public sector work contracts for 2017 and 2018, while also ensuring that whatever contracts are transformed into permanent contracts – via Greek court rulings — will not negatively affect fiscal targets enshrined in the medium-term program for 2018-2020.
At the same time, the leftist-rightist coalition government, with the central banker’s “seal of approval”, promises to conclude a recalculation of pension payments, a process expected to reduce overall social security spending.
Practically all of the “commitments”, as reported in “N” over the past few months, are the “prior actions” – called “key deliverables” in a supplementary memorandum unveiled at a recent Eurogroup – that the Greek side has promised to implement before the current bailout program ends in August 2018.
The first report was published in the Athens daily “Kathimerini”.
