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Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 13-10-22
CONTENTS
[01] Greece needs additional measures to meet targets, EU sources say
[01] Greece needs additional measures to meet targets, EU sources say
BRUSSELS (ANA-MPA/Maria Aroni) Greece needs to take additional measures
to meet the fiscal targets of the Greek programme in 2014, European
Union sources said on Tuesday. Speaking to reporters, here, EU sources
said that certain member-states were displeased with the message "no
more measures" sent by the Greek side and stressed it was important
for Greece to meet its fiscal targets for 2014 and to achieve a primary
budget surplus in the same year.
This is the only solution if Greece wants to reduce its debt level
faster, to attract investments and to boost economic growth, Community
sources said.
The same sources underlined the existence of a fiscal gap in the 2014
budget, worth 2.0 billion euros and stressed that it was necessary to take
specific and focused measures and not measures of a horizontal nature
(i.e. cuts in pensions and wages). They noted that the troika and the
Greek side continued to disagree on the size of the fiscal gap in 2014,
while they underlined that Brussels estimated this gap at 2.0 billion
euros. The disagreement was the result of different ways in measuring
growth, fiscal multipliers and state spending, they said.
The community sources said that the Greek side needed to first satisfy
all four prior actions envisaged in the memorandum before its creditors
approved the disbursement of an 1-bln-euro loan to Greece and said the
first and most significant prior action was a mobility scheme in the
public sector with 12,500 civil servants. The second is a restructuring
of Greece's defense industries - Hellenic Defense Systems, Hellenic
Vehicle Industry and Larco. The sources said that two out of those
three industries must shut down. The third prior action is repayment of
outstanding state debts to Athens Water and Thessaloniki Water and the
fourth is a new lawyers' code.
The same sources expressed hope that discussion over a so-called
"financing gap" of the Greek programme could begin as soon as possible,
possibly in December, but noted that there must first be a 'safer'
assessment of fiscal figures for 2013 and 2014. They did not exclude
the possibility of an extension on the maturing of Greek bonds held by
European Central Bank and EU central banks. They noted that decisions over
the sustainability of Greek debt were expected around May or June 2014.
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