Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 17-05-02

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] FinMin Eu. Tsakalotos: "The agreement is completed, there's white smoke"

[01] FinMin Eu. Tsakalotos: "The agreement is completed, there's white smoke"

"The negotiation is completed, there's white smoke", Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said coming out of the meeting at a central hotel in Athens.

He noted that the agreement reached was "a preliminary technical one" that will open the way to talks on the debt and the staff level agreement.

Tsakalotos expressed his belief that the agreement on the debt would move ahead now because there is no impediment to the completion of the second review such as a lack of agreement.

The meeting began late on Monday afternoon after the lenders produced the final drafts of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP). The MoU is the agreement that will be signed with the European institutions and the MEFP will be signed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The outstanding issues discussed were of both major and minor importance, including the pension system, privatisations, retail markets and the public sector.

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