ATHENS: The so-called troika of international creditors returned to Athens yesterday for another round of crucial talks with Greece’s debt-wracked government, as unions prepared for a general strike.
Mission chiefs from the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank will embark on a new round of talks with Greek officials, the finance ministry said.
Greece’s government is anxious to get the negotiations under way, as the troika’s report is necessary to unlock a vital ¤1bn ($1.3bn) disbursement of financial aid from the country’s rescue loans.
The troika will have a first meeting with Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras today.
Troika audits have been taking place on a regular basis ever since Greece signed its first international bailout deal, in the beginning of the debt crisis in 2010.
This time, the talks will focus on Greece’s progress in reforming its vast public sector and on finalising the budget for 2014.
The IMF recently downplayed rumours about a supposed rift between Athens and the troika and alleged delays in resuming the talks which were suspended at the end of September because of the German elections.
“There’s a review under way, we’ve been clear... But to suggest that this is on some sort of slow track or anything like that, I don’t think that’s the right way to look at things right now,” IMF spokesman William Murray said at the end of October. “There are solutions for all matters, as long as there is realism, flexibility and common sense on all sides,” Stournaras told liberal daily Kathimerini on Sunday.
But pressure is mounting for Athens.
The indebted country may have kept most of its promises regarding the redeployment of 25,000 civil servants and the axing of 4,000 state jobs by the end of 2013, but the question of the fiscal gap for 2014 remains a thorny issue.
The EU and IMF foresee new austerity measures, predicting a fiscal gap of ¤2bn for 2014.
Greece’s government insists that the gap will not exceed ¤500m and that it can be covered through structural reforms instead of new slashes in salaries and pensions. Stournaras introduced some changes in a new property tax in an attempt to fill the gap.
But his changes enraged unions and certain lawmakers from Greece’s conservative-led coalition government.
Greece’s two main unions — the private sector’s GSEE and the public sector’s ADEDY — have called a 24-hour general strike for tomorrow. This will be the second general strike to take place in less than four months, and the fifth one since the beginning of the year.
“The struggle will continue for as long as the government insists on adopting the policies of the troika that add to the impasse,” the two unions said in a joint statement yesterday.
AFP
