By N. Bellos
Intense negotiations but without the necessary progress towards overcoming obstacles blocking the second review of the Greek program is the way one top EU source on Monday described the situation this week, days before another crucial Eurogroup meeting.
Moreover, as January gives way to February deadlines are now absolutely pressing for the now delayed review and the crisis-battered Greek economy’s prospects in 2017.
Yet another letter by Greek Finance Ministry Euclid Tsakalotos to creditors was sent this week, without however, listing specific measures. Those are expected to be outlined by Tsakalotos in person this week to European leaders in Brussels, and ahead of Thursday’s Eurogroup meeting.
The UK-based economics professor who left British academia to join the previously anti-memorandum and anti-bailout SYRIZA party as it moved from main opposition to power, will meet in the Belgian capital with EU Commission Pierre Moscovici and possibly with Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem, among others.
In terms of looming deadlines, the EU source in Brussels said that if progress is not achieved over the next few days, then the Eurogroup will not be in a position to decide on a return of creditors’ representatives to Athens for negotiations. Without negotiators in the Greek capital, of course, a conclusion of the second review is more-or-less impossible.
Another variable concerns the point of convergence between European creditors and the IMF over their respective positions on the Greek program, something that will probably be achieved a political resolution at the highest level.
Christine Lagarde’s pledge last week that the IMF will remain in the program remains to be seen in practice, sources in Brussels noted.
At last word, the IMF and European creditors have bridged differences and now agree over a 3.5-percent budget surplus goal, as a percentage of GDP, for Greece after 2018. The fiscal target will supposedly remain in the “medium-term period”, namely, less than 10 years but more than two.
Other points of agreement eye the implementation of medium-term debt relief measures within 2018, as well as “pre-emptive” measures to ensure that fiscal targets are met after 2018.
It is the last point that has the embattled leftist Greek government in bind, given that it has repeatedly stated that it will not preemptively enact austerity measures now for the period after 2018.
