Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Wednesday called the rapid conclusion of a second review of the Greek program (third bailout) as both realistic and necessary.
His comments, made during an address to his ruling leftist party's Parliament group, come in the wake of substantiated reports that creditors' representatives concluded negotiations this week with the Greek side in Athens with several outstanding issues still resolved.
The increasingly embattled Tsipras, whose party significantly trails center-right main opposition New Democracy (ND) in nine out of 10 opinions polls conducted over recent months, underlined that finalizing negotiations is imperative -- "so that on Dec. 5 (during a Eurogroup meeting) we can have the necessary political agreement for the conclusion of the second review, and at the same time, for discussion on debt relief measures to begin."
He told his party's MPs that the goal is immediate short-term measures and the opening of discussion on medium-term measures that will be implemented until 2018, as well as deliberations over long-term measures after 2018.
Moreover, he repeated that his government has fulfilled, "to the letter", as he said, the agreements it has signed with creditors, while it also retains the political will to conclude the review without "unnecessary delays".
"We will not, however, enter into a discussion over outrageous demands, whether this means new measures; or, especially, new (austerity) measures after the program (concludes in mid 2018), or even Greece's exclusion from the legal framework of collective bargaining negotiations."
The latter remark was linked to a standing demand by Athens that the collective bargaining framework be revived in the country, i.e. social partners negotiating and agreeing to labor-related contracts on a sector basis.
