Institutions' mission heads to arrive in Athens on Tuesday

Gazzetta team 19 Οκτωβρίου 2015 - 15:32

The heads of the institutions' missions to Greece are expected to arrive in Athens on Tuesday, where they will stay for 2-3 days in order to be briefed on the implementation of reforms after the voting of the omnibus bill and to decide the agenda of prior actions and milestones to be legislated going forward.

Declan Costello (European Commission), Delia Velculescu (IMF) and Rasmus Ruefer (ECB) will have preparatory contacts with leading government ministers and are expected to return to Greece in November or December at the latest for the formal review of Greece's economy.

Wednesday's Eurogroup Working Group is considered a milestone as it will prepare for the Eurogroup's November 9 meeting and will advise the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) on whether to give the green light for the disbursement of the sub-tranche of 2 billion euros by October 27.

The content of the next omnibus bill that is to be discussed with the representatives of institutions will include much more "difficult" actions (eg pension reforms, "bad" loans, new austerity measures etc.), but its passage will open the way for three important issues:

• The disbursement of a 1 billion euro sub-tranche

• The beginning of the review and an agreement on debt settlement

• The completion of the recapitalization of banks by the end of December in order to avoid a "haircut" of deposits (bail in) to be applied in accordance with EU Directive from January 1, 2016.