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Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 14-09-13
CONTENTS
[01] Eurogroup president confirms troika to return to Athens later
this month
[01] Eurogroup president confirms troika to return to Athens later
this month
MILAN (ANA-MPA/Maria Aroni) - Eurogroup President Jerun Dijsselbloem on
Friday confirmed that representatives of Greece's troika of creditors
will return to Athens by late September and said that a series of
meetings held in Paris were "useful" and "prepared the ground."
Speaking to reporters, in a news conference after completion of
an informal Eurogroup meeting here, Dijsselbloem said that eurozone
Finance ministers were briefed by their Greek counterpart over progress
in implementing a Greek programme. He said that when the picture of the
current assessment was clear, Eurogroup could begin discussions on all
issues interelated with the termination of the Greek fiscal programme
at the end of the year.
Speaking to reporters, Klaus Regling, head of the European Financial
Stability Fund, noted that a sum of 1.0 billion euros was disbursed to
Greece in August and stressed that another 1.8 billion euros from the EFSF
and 1.8 billion euros from the SMP programme (profits from the holdings of
Greek state bonds by European central banks) were due to be disbursed. He
added that these sums would be ready to be disbursed soon after the
successful completion of the fiscal programme's fifth assessment.
Greek Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis, speaking to ANA-MPA, expressed
his satisfaction over a positive discussion held in the Eurogroup over
the implementation of the Greek programme. Hardouvelis said the meeting
underlined progress made by Greece in the implementation of structural
reforms but noted, however, that the agenda of pending issues remained
large. The Greek minister agreed with Eurogroup's president that a series
of meetings held in Paris with the troika facilitated the arrival of the
troika by the end of September in Athens. Hardouvelis said the troika
was expected to arrive in Athens around September 25 and said that Greece
has so far satisfied 55 pct of agreed measures.
During the Eurogroup meeting, Hardouvelis explained to his counterparts
that in the case of countries hit by a strong recession and crisis,
such as Greece, "it was important for people to take a breath, to see
the light at the end of the tunnel in order to accept the necessity of
reforms". Commenting on the monthly report of ECB, released on Thursday,
envisaging a relatively significant fiscal gap for Greece in 2015 and
2016, Hardouvelis said the Greek side did not see it as significant and
that this would be presented in a 2015 draft budget to be unveiled in
October. He said that discussions over restructuring Greek debt would
begin after the release of European bank stress tests.
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