Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will attempt to sell a package of economic reforms demanded by creditors to his leftist party in the next few days, reports said on Wednesday.
According to a report in the daily Kathimerini, Tsipras will try to win over hardliners within his leftist SYRIZA party to back the reform plan, which could include the continuation of a highly unpopular property tax for another year as well as labour and pension reforms.
The government will also only carry out privatisations which will allow it to retain a controlling majority while the country’s lenders want the special 30 per cent reduction on VAT enjoyed by the Greek islands to be scrapped.
Tsipras is expected to sell the package first to SYRIZA’s political secretariat in the next few days, followed by a gathering of the party’s parliamentary group where he will attempt to convince all his 149 lawmkaers to back the reforms during a vote in parliament.
The rush to finalise the list of economic reforms by next week comes as officials from the Euro Working Group are scheduled to hold a teleconference call on Wednesday to discuss Athens’s progress so far to unlock badly needed bailout funds.
Athens’ left-leaning government needs the money to avoid bankruptcy and a forced exit from the eurozone. Tsipras’ SYRIZA party won an election in January promising to end the austerity demanded by Greece’s creditors.
Greek government sources have said Athens’ reform proposals could include raising the retirement age. The government also wants to crack down on money laundering and tax evasion.
Once Athens submits the reform list, it will be reviewed by its creditors and experts advising the Eurogroup, before being considered by the panel of eurozone finance ministers. The review process is expected to take at least 24 hours.
Greece’s bailout still has 7.2 billion euros (7.9 billion euros) in international aid on hand for the country.
Some 1.8 billion euros are additionally available in a central bank programme involving the purchase of Greek bonds. The latter is believed to be more easily and rapidly available to Athens, given the approval procedures involved.
According to the daily Kathimerini, Greece is also going to request 1.2 billion euros back from one of the eurozone’s bailout funds, arguing that it transferred too many bonds back to the fund as part of a bailout-extending deal struck in February.
Source : Sapa-dpa /aw
