Greece divergences persist with creditors – The Tribune.fr

The meeting in Brussels between Alexis Tsipras and the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker has resulted in any agreement. Although the European Commission has noted the “progress in the consideration of reciprocal positions” , the Greek Government rejects indeed still the reduction of social benefits and higher taxes demanded by the IMF and the European Union in exchange for new loans.

However, creditors have been willing to compromise, especially by lowering their requirements in terms of primary surplus. The draft prepared by the eurozone, the European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) now includes a primary surplus target of 1% of GDP in 2015, 2% in 2016, 3% in 2017 and 3.5% in 2018, according to EU officials familiar with the matter. These figures are significantly lower than the primary surplus targets set with the previous Greek government, who were between 3 and 4.5%,

A “Realistically”

Despite the persistence of these differences, the Greek Prime Minister claims remain optimistic. Thursday, June 4, he took the view that Athens was close to an agreement with its international creditors.

“We are very close to an agreement on the primary surplus. This means that all parties agree to move forward without resorting to harsh austerity measures of the past, “said Greek Prime Minister.

In emphasizing the need to keep an “realistically” , it has once again ruled out the abolition of benefits for pensioners with low incomes or a change of the tax value added tax (VAT) which, according to him, would result in an increase of ten percentage points of taxation on electricity.

“Ultimately I think the proposals on the table will be those of the Greek government, “he said.

Greece reimburse the IMF

Alexis Tsipras yet added that the country would honor the repayment of € 300 million owed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday. “Do not worry, we have already paid 7.5 billion euros so we continue” , said he has to reporters as he left the dinner held Wednesday evening at the headquarters of EU executive in Brussels by Jean-Claude Juncker together with Jeroen Dijsselbloem, President of the Eurogroup.

Jean-Claude Juncker will hold a new meeting of this type in the coming days according to European sources. Before the meeting, a Greek government source had said that the Greek Prime Minister, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande had agreed on the need to achieve a “immediate solution” on the Greek debt crisis, low primary surpluses.

Four refund before the end of June

The payment due June 5 is the first of four repayments that Greece must make to the IMF by the end of the month, for a total amount of 1.6 billion euros. A possible agreement with its creditors would in principle in Athens, who only has access to international debt markets to collect the balance of about € 7.2 billion of aid under the current aid plan , supposed to end on June 30

Greece must total 320 billion to these creditors, which represents 175% of its gross domestic product. Some 65% of these debts are held by governments in the euro area and 8.7 billion euros by the European Central Bank.

(With Reuters)