The Greek government has implemented precisely what it committed to last summer at the conclusion of talks of structural reforms in order to bring its national debt within 3 percent of GDP. Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos made the claim during during a press briefing after a meeting of Eurozone’s finance ministers in Amsterdam.
“There is nobody inside the Eurogroup who doubts for a moment that we have implemented what has been agreed,” he said, adding that in the next few days the two sides will find a “reliable” solution to bridge the gap between the European institutions and the International monetary Fund (IMF) on achieving a primary surplus of 3.5 pct of GDP in 2018.
Concerning the package of reforms for the summer the minister said Eurogroup agreed that some technical details remain open which will be discussed in the next few days, but noted that the solution which will be found must take into account that Greek law doesn’t allow conditionally based legislation.
“The validity of a law cannot depend on a future and uncertain event. That is, you cannot legislate ‘x’ if ‘y’ happens in 2018 or 2019,” Tsakalotos said, adding that whichever solution is chosen to bridge the gap between the European institutions and the IMF, it will be discussed in parallel to the debt issue. “It’s important that the complete debt and reforms package gives a clear signal to Greeks and European citizens but also Greek and international investors that Greece has turned a page,” he noted.
