Greek Finance Minister, Yannis Stournaras recently spoke to the Financial Times, saying that the small parliamentary majority of the government makes it increasingly difficult to pass hard economic reform measures and asks troika to be more realistic in its demands.
According to the British newspaper, Yannis Stournaras, during the last four months, has been constantly struggling to show lenders that Greece may not be able to meet the requirement of yet another rescue package amounting to 172 billion dollars. In the meantime, Athens continues to implement the required reforms – including better tax collection.
“The majority is very slim. So we have to be very careful,” said Stournaras in his interview with the Financial Times.
The Greek Finance Minister was particularly critical of troika’s negotiating style, accusing negotiators from the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission, of adopting “a maximalist approach” when Athens “that spooked both financial markets and domestic companies, was risking the country’s nascent economic recovery”.
“During the period they were here (Greece), the markets were very weak,” said the Greek Finance Minister. “We could even observe it in the turnover of shops. People have fear when the troika is here. This has to change,” he added.
The Finance Minister also acknowledged that the compliance ratio in Greece remains low, but he insisted that “many of the remaining reforms could be made through administrative acts and not legislation.”
However, Troika officials insist that Athens must change its laws and allow companies to make large-scale job cuts.
“It is true that in Greece there are a lot of clientelistic politics up until now. There are many things that have changed, and many things that should change, Stournaras commented, adding that “Now, if we take to the parliament such an issue when unemployment is 27 percent, it would not pass. It’s as simple as that.”
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