Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos appeared in parliament on Thursday afternoon and stated that he will give a full report on the agreement with creditors on Tuesday.
Tsakalotos had not made any statements or appeared in public since Monday’s meeting of euro zone finance ministers in Brussels. At the Eurogroup meeting it was agreed that creditors’ teams will return to Athens on Tuesday February 28 to resume negotiations on the bailout program review.
“It is touching that you were looking for me and that you missed me,” he said, replying to comments made by the opposition about his disappearance following Monday’s Eurogroup.
“All updates are given by the government. There is a collective responsibility and (government spokesperson Dimitris) Tzanakopoulos is not speaking for himself, he is speaking for the government,” he said.
Tsakalotos said that he will speak at length about the agreement with creditors on Tuesday, in the Parliamentary Financial Affairs Committee. He also made a jab at the opposition saying, “I would have given you 4-5 days to get over your sadness.”
In a brief reference to the Eurogroup talks he said that there will be no “net” measures, meaning that there won’t be any measures worth billions of euros and that the measures will not have any financial impact on households.
“If there is 1 billion euros in recessionary measures, there will be one million in measures that would balance the equation. Some might lose, but others will win. We will do everything we can to reduce the number of those who would lose. We never said that the tax system was perfect and we are always open to discussions that would have zero fiscal impact,” Tsakalotos explained.
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