The Greek minister leading negotiations with institutional creditors promised that countervailing measures to off-set a new round of austerity for 2019 and 2020 - all expected to be sent to Parliament for ratification - will be of equal value, "if we are within (fiscal) targets", as he clarified.
The Greek minister leading negotiations with institutional creditors promised that countervailing measures to off-set a new round of austerity for 2019 and 2020 - all expected to be sent to Parliament for ratification - will be of equal value, "if we are within (fiscal) targets", as he clarified.
Moreover, in his very last statement before reporters and television crews in Valletta, Malta, Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos inserted a caveat, namely, "... that measures will be implemented in 2019 and 2020 only if interventions (relief) are made over the (Greek) debt."
His reference to the Greek debt came as the previous four EU and Eurozone officials that described the tentative agreement did not specifically mention measures for debt relief.
Speaking after Jeroen Dijsselbloem, EU Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, ESM Managing Director Klaus Regling and the ECB's Benoit Coeuré in Malta, immediately after a concluded Eurogroup meeting, Tsakalotos merely confirmed what Eurogroup chairman Dijsselbloem announced minutes earlier. The details of the agreement, in fact, have been more-or-less described over the past month or so: total austerity measures worth 2 percent of Greek GDP (1 percent in 2019 and 1 percent in 2020).
In defining the "positive measures" for 2019 and 2020, he mentioned increased spending by a future Greek government "to combat juvenile poverty... the problems of the younger generations in (finding) employment; they will deal with reducing the contribution of pensioners in (buying) medicine, as well as an investment package." He also cited support for what he called the "problem of housing" in Greece, which traditionally boasts one of the highest percentages of private home ownership in the EU.
"In 2020 the positive measures will weigh in on the side of tax (relief), with changes in the ENFIA (property tax) and primarily in the income tax," was how he described countervailing measures at the time - which if the current situation remains unchanged, will be a year after regularly scheduled general elections are held.
"... We have an agreement over the primary axes ... there are many compromises; there are things that don't satisfy us, and things that satisfy us ... it's in the nature of every agreement to have compromise; for it (agreement) to include things that disappoint us, not the negotiating team, per se, but the Greek people," Tsakalotos said in reference to a deal that includes more pension cuts and a lower tax-free threshold for annual income.
"Before the end of the program (third bailout, in August 2018) ... the country's fiscal course will be judged, and based on this (result), it will then be decided whether the (countervailing) measures will implemented ... if the economy is going well."
Both austerity measures official cited on Friday were anathema for the leftist-rightist Greek government coalition over the past year of negotiations with creditors to finally conclude the second review of the Greek bailout program. In fact, leftist SYRZIA and its junior coalition partner, the small rightist-populist Independent Greeks (AN.EL) party, rode to an election victory in January 2015 on a wave anti-bailout and anti-austerity rhetoric and promises.
Finally, the Greek FinMin said a liberalization of the regime to allow mass layoffs and a legal right of employers to declare "lock-outs" in the country were not included in the agreement.
In terms of a standing desire by the embattled Tsipras government to restore obligatory collective bargaining talks between unions and employers' groups , he pointed to 2018, "whereby it (collective bargaining regime) will resemble something that approaches the normal status," without going into further details.
Ιn a later statement regarding the preliminary agreement between creditors and Athens, an IMF official noted:
"There has been important progress in recent weeks. A number of policy issues remain outstanding. But we are at a point where we think there are good prospects for successfully concluding discussions on these outstanding policy issues during the next mission to Athens. Such an agreement on policies will have to be followed by discussions with euro area countries to ensure satisfactory assurances on a credible strategy to restore debt sustainability, before a program is presented to the IMF Executive Board."