Luxembourg Minister for Finance, Pierre Gramegna, today arrived in Brussels to participate in a Eurogroup meeting to discuss the terms of a third Greece bailout.
In a statement on 12 July 2015, the Euro Summit emphasised the importance of rebuilding trust with the Greek authorities "as a prerequisite for a possible future agreement on a new ESM programme" and outlined several measures which needed to be taken before specific deadlines by Greek parliament, including the streamlining of the VAT system to increae revenue and the adoption of the Code of Civil Procedure, to overhaul the civil justice system to significantly accelerate the judicial process and reduce costs.
The Minister had this to say on the situation prior to today's meeting: "If we look at the compromise that was taken on the 12 July, there is a sequence of measures that need to be taken. We have a compromise. Three packages of measures which have been taken and decided by the Greek parliament. This was very rapidly done, Greece has made more progress in the last month than in the six previous months in terms of the measures to be taken and they must be commended for that and the commissions have met to give the green light for the third package.
"Once the third package is agreed, which I hope will happen today, we will have several weeks in which to determine how Greece can achieve these objectives," continued Minister Gramegna. "We know that the international format emphasises or asks for the restructuring of the debt. This restructuring of the debt is not left out, it is officially planned in the compromise of 12 July so working in this direction will give us some weeks to discuss this subject which we wished to put after the discussion of the aid package."
Speaking of the meeting about to take place, Eurogroup President and Minister of Finance of the Netherlands, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, stated, "It won't be short. The MOU is a very extensive document as you've seen with major reforms. There will be questions, there will be criticism, perhaps on issues which will have to be clarified or improved. Hopefully at the end of the evening we will have a positive outcome."
Minister Dijsselbloem went on to comment that other finance ministers in the Eurogroup "I'm sure (...) will have some critical remarks."
Dijsselbloem concluded his comments by saying: "Depth of sustainability is still a major point of concern certainly for IMF. The IMF will also look at that and we will look at it closely in October and hopefully we can make sure that it is sustainable by then and give off further guarantees, if necessary, so that the IMF can come onboard in October because that is very important to all of us."
Photos by © European Union (Top: Eurogroup President and Minister of Finance of the Netherlands, Jeroen Dijsselbloem. Bottom:Luxembourg Minister for Finance, Pierre Gramegna)
