Short-term debt relief measures announced last week for Greek will be suspended at least until January, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) abruptly announced on Wednesday.
The reason given is the 617-million-euro "holiday bonus" announced by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras last week, a one-off benefit to be allocated to some 1.6 million Greek pensioners -- essentially anyone with a monthly pension of less than 850 euros a month. Tsipras also announced a suspension of a measure to harmonize VAT rates for various Greek isles plagued by the ongoing migrant crisis.
“The institutions have concluded that the actions of the Greek government appear to not be in line with our agreements. Some member-states see it this way also and thus no unanimity now for implementing the short-term debt measures,” a spokesman for Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem later confirmed via Tweeter.
“We await a full report of the institutions in January,” Michel Reijns underlined.
