



Pointing out the difficulty of briefing Parliament while the negotiation was still ongoing and nothing was finalized, Tsakalotos said the prime minister’s speech a few days earlier had explained a number of points concerning the Eurogroup’s decision on February 20.

The government’s goal is to conclude talks on the programme’s measures and counter-measures in time for the next Eurogroup in March, Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos told MPs on Tuesday. Briefing Parliament’s Economic Affairs Committee, Tsakalotos also denied that the government had tried to delay the completion of the review. “We did not try to delay but negotiated on what we consider part of the solution, based on our principles,” Tsakalotos said.

Opposition criticism blaming the government for the delay in completing the review, he added, was in stark contrast to statements in Europe and America that blamed disagreement between the lenders. Tsakalotos pointed to the major “systemic” differences between the IMF and the European institutions and asked whether the opposition would have agreed to end the review in December, with an additional 2% of GDP of austerity measures.

The minister highlighted statements by Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem and European Commission Pierre Moscovici that the measures taken now will have a “net” neutral fiscal impact, as well as the shift in the IMF’s original position — which forecasts that Greece will fail to meet targets — to its current demand for “structural reforms” instead.

“It is within the agreement that structural-type reforms will be carried out,” Tsakalotos said, adding that the Eurogroup on February 20 ratified a political agreement for the return of the institutions to Athens.

(source: ana-mpa)



