The meeting of Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and Economy Minister Giorgos Stathakis with the representatives of the four lending institutions concluded on Wednesday, with Tsakalotos stating that the only differences remaining are on the timeline of the implementation of the required reforms.
There was optimism expressed after the end of the day’s talks with creditors — the European Commission, European Central Bank, European Stability Mechanism and International Monetary Fund.
“There are three or four points which remain open at a technical and not political level,” Tsakalotos said after the meeting, adding that one of them is the timeline for the implementation of reforms. “We are still negotiating which [reforms] will be implemented now, which ones in October, which ones will follow and what impact they will have on a fiscal level and growth,” he noted.
Regarding farmers’ taxes, the minister said that there are a lot of issues to be discussed about farmers and “we must see which reforms will be implemented now and which ones can be delayed.”
On the issue of the new State Assets Fund, the two sides discussed which ones will be included in the development fund and how the organization will operate, the minister said. So far there have been several differences on the issue, such as the timeline of privatizations.
Tsakalotos also said that bank recapitalization is an issue that must close by the end of the year. “No one wants to see the Cyprus case repeated,” the finance minister said referring to the haircut on bank deposits in Cyprus. He added that creditors also agree that the haircut of deposits in Cyprus should not have happened.
Finally, the issue of red loans will be discussed when the bank recapitalization issue will be put on the negotiations table.
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