By Eric Maurice, euobserver
The troika will be back to Athens on Tuesday (20 October) to assess Greece’s implementation of the third bailout programme and to push for new reforms.
Mission chiefs from the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund, as well as from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the eurozone emergency fund, will say whether Greece can receive a €2 billion tranche of aid on 27 October.
They will meet Greek officials and ministers to evaluate “progress in the implementation of the program, with special regard to the fulfillment of the milestones and the outlook of the first review,” a Commission spokeswoman said Monday.
The milestones are a set of reforms voted last Friday (16 October) as a condition to receive the €2 billion tranche. The main items were penalties on early retirement and an increase in property taxes. The bill was passed by the Syriza-Anel coalition majority, with all of the opposition voting against.
Another set of milestones is to be adopted by mid-November for the disbursement of a €1 billion tranche. It will focus on pension reform, tax on farmers and legislation on banks’ bad loans.
The first review of the third programme launched in August will depend on the evaluation of the progress made so far. It was expected to start in October but may only start in November. The next meeting of eurozone finance ministers is planned for 9 November.
According to Kathimerini newspaper, 16 of the 49 prior actions required by Greece’s creditors have been implemented so far. Most of the remaining measures are still waiting for decrees or circulars from the ministries.
Strike
The ECB, meanwhile, is preparing its assessment of Greece’s four main banks, the National Bank of Greece, Piraeus Bank SA, Eurobank Ergasias and Alpha Bank. Its report will decide whether to release up to €25 billion euros for the Greek banking sector.
On Wednesday, the Greek government will present a bill on bank recapitalisation, which will include incentives for private investors.
Creditors’ demands and government reforms were hotly debated in parliament last week and they continue to be disputed. On Monday, the private sector union GSEE called a 24-hour strike for 12 November to protest against the reforms. Paseges, a farming cooperatives union, also said it would call for action in December.
On Monday, Greece’s central bank reported that the state budget recorded a primary deficit of €390 million euros in September, from a primary surplus of €440 million last year. From January to September, the primary surplus was €2.67 billion, down from €2.75 billion euros in the same period in 2014.
During the same nine-month period, the government had a cash deficit of €2.499 billion for January–September, up from 2.213 billion in the same period last year.
