By G. Kouros
Behind-the-scenes consultations are reportedly continuing in order to restart official negotiations aimed at completing the now delayed second review of the Greek program, which will affect, among others, Athens' hoped-for re-inclusion of Greek bonds in the ECB's quantitative easing (QE) program.
The target now, after previously fruitless dates in December 2016 and January 2017, is in February 2017.
Given the uncertainty of when institutional creditors' representatives will return to Athens for talks, Greek FinMin Euclid Tsakalotos has reportedly begun a round of contacts with his Eurozone counterparts and top European officials, including with Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem and EU Commissioner Pierre Moscovici.
Creditors' representatives were initially scheduled to return to Athens this week.
Moreover, Economy Minister Dimitri Papadimitriou is eyeing a meeting with ECB President Mario Draghi, with the object of the talks, according to reports, the re-inclusion of Greek bonds in the QE program.
Athens wants to overcome creditors' most recent insistence for additional measures worth four billion euros -- a standing IMF position -- after 2018, in order to achieve European creditors' demands for primary budget surplus targets of 3.5 percent of GDP after the current bailout program ends.
The "tug-of-war" between the IMF and European creditors, primarily Germany, has left the struggling leftist-rightist coalition in government in Athens stuck in the middle. The latter is sternly opposed to taking more austerity measures after 2018, yet it appears open to the possibility of extending an automatic spending cuts mechanism for another three-year period until 2020.
Athens also wants lower fiscal targets after 2018, which the IMF has repeatedly termed as "unrealistic", while avoiding the more radical reforms promoted by the IMF, which European creditors, in turn, appear less concerned about.
