Commission compliance report: Athens must implement 113 'prior actions' by June 2018

By P. Kakouris, Th. Adamopoulos and T. Tsiros

The Greek coalition government must implement no less than 113 "prior actions" by the second quarter of 2018, according to compliance report released by the EU Commission on Thursday and presented by "N", a week after the second review of the current program (third bailout) was finally concluded at the Eurogroup setting.

Specific measures that the leftist-rightist government must implement - after previously ratifying relevant legislation through Parliament - include a harmonization of objective tax criteria employed by the tax bureau with actual market values, as well as changes to the regime for Greece's "Scandinavian-level" VAT rates. These aforementioned measures, for instance, must be implemented by December 2017.

Other actions, which for previous Greek governments proved politically "painful" to even consider, include a change in the law governing labor unions, whereby strikes and other industrial actions can only be declared with a "50 percent+1" vote by all members of an affected labor chapter, sector or specific company. Previously, votes for strikes were taken by a majority of those present at an extraordinary general assembly of workers.

Of the 113 "prior actions", 95 measures must be implemented in 2017 within the framework of concluding the third and fourth reviews of the current memorandum, widely expected to be the last offered by European creditors to Greece.  

Other high-profile "prior actions" that must be taken this month include:

• Establishment of a review body for examining appeals against public tender decisions (by June 2017)
• An independent auditor for public sector payments made between June 2016 and December 2016 for state arrears to the private sector 
• A rationalization of health sector spending and restructuring of the higher education sector regarding medical and nursing schools.
• A rationalization educators' privileges and bonuses 
• A restructuring of the framework to cover state arrears to the private sector and activation of a long-awaited law for an out-of-court settlement process.
• Implication of Greece's cavernous labor and employment sector law.
• Liberalization of the regime allowing retailers to open on Sundays, as per long-standing recommendations by the OECD.
• Finally publishing a presidential decree that liberalizes the licensing regime for civil engineers, engineers employed in public works
• Reforming the legal framework for expropriation of land for public works, private-public sector co-financed works etc.
• A June deadline for the state-run and dominant power company, the Public Power Corp. (PPC), to transfer 51 percent of its shares in the Independent Power Transmission Operator (ADMIE) to a holding company. The latter must, in turn, inform the Capital Committee of the development, with EU Commission also being notified of the transaction.
• A new mechanism for monitoring energy networks' capacity and a special secretariat for water resources management.
• Αpproval of a development plan by state services for the landmark and red-tape bedeviled Helleniko real estate development project in coastal southeast Athens.
• Final decisions for the transfer of a state-run aerospace industry to the Hellenic Corporation of Assets & Participations S.A., the latter being another memorandum-mandated entity created amid the current economic crisis.
• A first-ever evaluation process in Greece's wide-ranging public administration.