Greece inches towards loan tranche but pledge still wanted - The Best from Greece

Posted on: 22/Nov/2011

A decision on whether the European Union and the International Monetary Fund will release the next loan installment for Greece is due to be taken in a week but the final decision could still hang on whether New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras gives the country’s lenders his written guarantees to keep to the current strategy for tackling the debt crisis.

Prime Minister Lucas Papademos met European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and the head of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, in Brussels on Monday. The latter indicated that a decision on the 8-billion-euro tranche would likely be taken when eurozone finance ministers meet on November 29.

“The Eurogroup should be in a position to agree in its next meeting on the disbursement of the sixth tranche of the Greek loan,” he said.

However, it was clear from Papademos’s brief news conference with Barroso that the issue of Greece’s party leaders signing the texts the EU and the IMF have asked for is still an obstacle to the installment being released.

“We are in one of those moments where, with full respect for democracy, different parties need to become united,” said Barroso. “So what we have to do now is concentrate on implementation. Less politics and more commitment. For the European Union and the IMF to support [Greece], they need to be sure that this is for a sustainable outcome, that it’s not just for tomorrow, for a government, but for future governments.”

Papademos said the letters were “necessary to eliminate uncertainties and ambiguities concerning actions to be taken in the future by parties that may be in power.” But he added that it was up to the party leaders how they would confirm their commitment.

Commission sources told Kathimerini that Brussels would not accept as a sign of his commitment Samaras’s letter to the European People’s Party, the grouping of center-right European parties. In his November 13 letter, the ND leader pledged to stick to the economic policies linked to the October 26 deal on a second bailout for Greece but that “certain policies have to modified” to ensure the program is carried out.

Samaras said that he intended “to bring these issues to discussion, along with viable policy alternatives, strictly within the framework outlined in the program.”

Papademos is due to meet Eurogroup chief Jean-Claude Juncker and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi on Tuesday.

source: http://www.ekathimerini.com/

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