Greece's finance minister over the weekend referred to arrival of "permanent tax reductions in 2019", saying that the post-bailout period in the crisis-battered country means "no new commitments, prior actions or new disbursements" to creditors and by them, in the case of the latter.
Greek FinMin Euclid Tsakalotos, a UK-based economics professor before he resettled in Greece to delve into politics with radical leftist SYRIZA party, again repeated his coalition government's insistence on a "clean exit" from the memorandum era.
Greece's third - and last - memorandum bailout officially ends on Aug. 20, 2018.
"We are passing from the supervision of means and targets to supervision of only targets," Tsakalotos was quoted as saying in an interview published in the Sunday edition of the Athens daily "Ethnos".
Asked about recent political developments in Italy, he admitted that "developments ... affect the behavior of markets." He nevertheless countered that "Greece is more protected from external crises" because of a "cash cushion" now being accumulated by the government. The Greek state will not enjoy a guaranteed low-interest credit line extended by institutional creditors - mostly the ESM in this case - to cover its financing needs after August. As such, it will have to rely on its own resources or return to sovereign money markets.
While repeatedly stressing the achievement of a "clean exit" after August 2018, the now decidedly poll-trailing Tsipras government faces another round of cuts in social security spending as of Jan. 1, 2019 and possibly creditors' insistence that a tax-free annual income threshold be lowered next year - rather than in 2020.
Both austerity measures have been agreed to by the leftist-rightist coalition government with creditors.
