Support for debt relief measures has increased in the past few months. Debt relief measures are not new; they were initially promised by the Eurogroup several years ago (but never fully materialised), while the Tsipras government had been asking for them since the beginning of its mandate, supported by the IMF. However, there has recently been a renewed impulse coming from various parts of the euro area, now that the programme is ending positively. Even Germany, which has historically been more focused on Greek reforms rather than debt relief measures, has recently been more inclined towards the idea. Nevertheless, expectations over the magnitude of debt relief measures vary widely. France, the EC and the IMF are pushing for stronger debt relief measures, as soon as possible. This scenario would reduce uncertainty on Greece’s repayment capacity and open up a virtuous circle; whereby the country could regain its IG status and be part of QE or ECB balance sheet re-investment...
A European official said that Greece would have to complete all prior actions by 14 June (until now only 10 of the total 88 prior actions have been implemented), so that the 21 June Eurogroup would be able to approve loan disbursements and make decisions on debt relief measures and post bailout monitoring mechanism. According to government’s plan, a multi-bill will be tabled in Parliament by 5 June and voted by 9 June, addressing the majority of actions, while for the remainder there will be ministerial decisions. The same official said that the reduction of the tax-free threshold in 2019 instead of scheduled 2020 was now “completely off the table”.
Greece and its creditors agreed on the next steps for completing the country’s final bailout review, a key milestone for exiting the program and striking a deal on debt relief. Government officials and representatives from the International Monetary Fund and euro-area creditor institutions completed a week of discussions in Athens on Saturday. Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said reaching a technical deal to conclude the fourth bailout review, the so-called staff level agreement, paves the way for discussion of debt relief measures. Euro-area finance ministers may begin a discussion over how to ease the country’s debt burden of about 320 billion euros ($377 billion) at a May 24 meeting. The SLA agreement also lets policy makers to proceed with designing a framework for the country’s post-program monitoring and determining what sort of strings would be attached to the debt relief. Tsakalotos said such a mechanism will be discussed at the June 21 Eurogroup meet...
Comments
Post a Comment