Tight margins for Athens, creditors to meet May 22 date for concluding second review

An ever-tightening time-frame to finally conclude the long-delayed second review of the Greek program emerged from Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos high-profile meetings over the weekend at the annual World Bank and IMF spring meetings in Washington D.C.

The latest “unofficial deadline” is the May 22 Eurogroup meeting, after previous such deadlines were cited over the past year and then missed.

Greece and its institutional creditors must present a staff-level agreement to Euro area finance ministers in order for the country to resume lending from its creditors, which in this case are European and EZ partners, given that the country essentially remains excluded from borrowing on the open market.

On its part, the increasingly pressed Tsipras coalition government insists on measures to ease the country’s debt load.

By all accounts, the leftist-rightist government wants to pass new austerity measures through Parliament by May 15, allowing for relevant ministerial decisions to be issued and enough time for the composition of a compliance report to be presented to Euro zone finance ministers. Yet another round of negotiations and contacts could come on the sidelines of a G7 meeting in Bari, Italy, set for May 11 through May 13.

Standing differences remain, in fact, between the IMF and European creditors, especially Germany, over the course of the Greek program, with the Fund making it clear that it will not return to the program unless clear measures for debt relief are listed.

On its part, the Greek side has threatened not to implement passed measures unless debt relief is offered in the medium-term and if the Fund does not participate in the lending portion of the program.

In terms of the policy to be taken by the Trump administration on Greek program, most observers believe Washington will essentially align itself with the IMF’s position.