Greece offered concessions yesterday on some key reforms demanded by international lenders in exchange for new funding for the nation as Athens quickly runs out of money.
In a blog published on the day when eurozone finance ministers meet in Riga to assess progress on a comprehensive package of reforms, Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis agreed to some of the creditors’ conditions.
“The current disagreements with our partners are not unbridgeable,” Varoufakis wrote in the blog. “Our government is eager to rationalize the pension system [for example, by limiting early retirement], proceed with partial privatization of public assets… create a fully independent tax commission.”
Limiting early retirement to make the Greek pension system more sustainable, as well as privatization and a fully independent tax office were among some of the key demands of international creditors for Athens to get more money.
Greece’s left-wing government, elected on promises of ending austerity policies, has long opposed these conditions. As a result, negotiations have dragged on since late January without much progress and now Athens is running out of money.
In his blog, Varoufakis conceded the need for reform.
“Greece’s tax system needs to be revamped, and the revenue authorities must be freed from political and corporate influence,” he said.
“The pension system is ailing. The economy’s credit circuits are broken. The labor market has been devastated by the crisis and is deeply segmented, with productivity growth stalled. Public administration is in urgent need of modernization and public resources must be used more efficiently,” he added.
However, Varoufakis rejected the creditors’ approach of subordinating primary surplus targets for Greece in the coming years to a predetermined goal of reaching a debt to GDP ratio of about 120 percent in 2020.
“The result of this method, in our government’s opinion, is an ‘austerity trap,’” he said.
“Instead, we should map out a forward-looking plan based on reasonable assumptions about the primary surpluses consistent with the rates of output growth, net investment and export expansion that can stabilize Greece’s economy and debt ratio,” he said.
“If this means that the debt-to-GDP ratio will be higher than 120 percent in 2020, we devise smart ways to rationalize, reprofile or restructure the debt — keeping in mind the aim of maximizing the effective present value that will be returned to Greece’s creditors,” he said.
European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis yesterday said that Greece has not made enough progress in crunch debt talks with its European partners to unlock sorely needed funds as part of its massive EU-IMF bailout.
“Progress in technical negotiations has not been sufficient to reach any conclusion during this Eurogroup here in Riga,” Dombrovskis said as he arrived for a meeting of eurozone finance ministers.
Progress in the talks has so far proved elusive, while Athens is running out of money to pay its creditors, raising the risk of a default and a potentially chaotic exit from the single currency bloc.
“I heard some positive news last week, but I need to know more,” Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem said as he arrived for the talks.
Additional reporting by AFP
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