By G. Kampourakis
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Monday promised the "ASAP" implementation of "prior actions" by his government in order to conclude the looming third review of the ongoing bailout.
The second review that was wrapped up last spring came with a one-and-a-half-year of delay and was accompanied by another round of austerity measures and an automatic spending cuts mechanism in case fiscal targets appeared to veer off mark.
Speaking to ministers just after he took to the national airwaves to defend his government's handling of an oil spill that has blackened the waters and several popular beaches in the greater Athens area - an unprecedented environmental disaster by Greek standards - Tsipras said the "prior actions", or "key deliverables", in Commission argot, must be completed by November.
European creditors have already signaled a review deadline of no later than the end of the year, while finance ministry officials had - unofficially, at least - advocated an early 2018 completion date.
The previously anti-bailout, anti-austerity political firebrand, whose popularity ratings have plummeted to low double-digit figures after two-and-a-half years in power, warned against more delays in the review process, which pundits in Athens say hints at a pending Cabinet reshuffle.
In a bid to shore up his leftist party's grassroots supporters, he rejected forecasts of more austerity measures being taken, dismissed the prospect of revenues falling short of target, and said that if "everything goes as planned", his government will again doll out a "Christmas bonus" for millions of Greek pensioners.
Last December's one-off bonuses - of varying levels - to pensioners receiving less than 800 euros in monthly social security benefits, regardless of their asset and wealth statements, caused a sharp backlash on the part of the country's institutional creditors.
In turning to his main political rival, center-right main opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, he said regularly scheduled elections in 2019 will also "judge New Democracy party's neo-liberal dystopia".
Mitsotakis spent much of the weekend in Thessaloniki presenting his and his party's pro-business and liberal reforms package.
The ruling SYRIZA party and its junior coalition partner, the small rightist-populist Independent Greeks' party (AN.EL), have repeatedly termed ND's pledges to reduce taxes, state spending, boost privatizations and liberalize the public sector and labor markets as "neo-liberal" policies.
