Heads of creditor 'quartet' due in Athens on Wednesday

Gazzetta team 28 Ιουλίου 2015 - 18:27

The heads of the four missions sent by Greece's creditor institutions - the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) - are due to arrive in Athens on Wednesday, finance ministry sources said.

In the meantime, intensive negotiations began on Tuesday on the level of technical teams and working groups, at the General Accounting Office.

The sources said that the two sides aimed to conclude an agreement as soon as possible, with the technical teams expected to complete their work by Friday and only have "follow-up" meetings at the weekend in exceptional cases.

They denied that there was any organisational problem relating to the negotiations, saying that the talks are taking place where the institution representatives are staying and, where necessary, meetings are held at the Bank of Greece and the General Accounting Office.

Several working groups are involved in the negotiations, which will cover fiscal indices, pensions, labour issues and the OECD toolkit.

The finance ministry sources repeated that press reports concerning a further package of prior actions have no basis in either the July 12 Euro Summit agreement or the letters sent by Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos to the ESM, nor in talks to date with the institutions.

The four heads of missions arriving in Athens are the EU Commission's Declan Costello, ECB's Rasmus Rüffer, ESM's Nicola Giammarioli and IMF's Delia Velculescu.