Greece: Athens ahead to a forced march to agree, but Berlin still has “issues” – Challenges.fr

Athens (AFP) – Athens continued Wednesday to advance to forced march towards the adoption of the new loan agreement with the country’s creditors, ignoring the Berlin reserves that still has “questions” to ask, during a decisive Eurogroup Friday.

Having heard two weeks with representatives of the country’s creditors on the outline of the reforms to consent for a new international aid of three years, a worth around 85 billion euros, the government of radical leftist Alexis Tsipras has already filed the bill resulting from the agreement “technical” concluded Tuesday morning.

The most likely scenario see this 400 page text to be debated in parliamentary committees on Thursday, and in plenary before a vote on the night of Thursday to Friday.

The Greek government should, counting on 106 votes of the major parties opposition, obtain ratification of this hearty roadmap – combining fiscal and structural reform measures – and could thus be in a strong position at the extraordinary meeting of finance ministers of the eurozone – Eurogroup – convened for 1300 GMT Friday .

– “secret plan” –

Because there will still be some opponents. German Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated Tuesday Mr Tsipras German preference for a bridge loan allowing the country to repay 3.4 billion euros to the ECB on August 20, before the final signing of the agreement.

The reservations on the side of Finland.

M. Tsipras said Wednesday for his part that he kept “confidence” in the final conclusion of the agreement, and launched a virulent stings to those with “a secret desire, a secret plan to redevelop the euro area using Greece as an excuse. “

” They will fail, “said he predicted, targeting” hawks “as some members of Merkel’s party, who would rather see Greece leave the euro.

On Wednesday afternoon, the German Finance Ministry has maintained that he would raise “questions” the Eurogroup, while denying press reports announcing that he would reject the agreement.

The spokesman for Merkel, Steffen Seibert, for his part, agreed that having reached so quickly to this document of some 400 pages, written not by Athens alone, but jointly under the leadership of institutions as finicky as the European Commission, the Central Bank European, International Monetary Fund and the European Stability Mechanism, was already “a significant result.”

Berlin seemed hardly able Indeed long remain blind to the incredible change of pace in the negotiations, since Mr Tsipras, duress, signed for a very difficult third aid package July 13, to avoid a Greek exit from the euro.

On Wednesday, a European source hard to imagine that Germany or other countries of the euro zone, find something wrong with the MoU.

” The main scenario is that the Eurogroup approves the program this Friday and paid the first tranche (of aid) by 19 August, “the source said.

Another EU source acknowledged agreement “exhaustive” and atmosphere “cordial, friendly”, who chaired the discussions

-. Hard to swallow –

The 300 Greek MPs therefore have a few hours to delve into the long list of reforms that could, after six years of crisis in Greece and two international aid plans since 2010, disrupting the daily lives of Greeks again.

According to the Minister of Interior Nikos Voutsis, interviewed Wednesday on the channel Mega, the agreement is “difficult”, contains measures “recessive” that will make difficult the recovery of an economy whose problems have worsened with the coming into force, since late June , strict control of capital.

European economic sources estimated Wednesday that Greece, which has emerged in 2014 from a long period of six years of recession, should see its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) plunging 2.3% in 2015 and 1.3% in 2016.

The pill of the agreement will be very difficult to swallow for the 149 Syriza MPs -and 13 elected their sovereignty right coalition partner (Anel) – who were elected in January on a promise to end austerity

One of these MPs, former minister. Finance Mr. Tsipras, Yanis Varoufakis, has already said Wednesday on the BBC that the aid plan “would not work”.

So, Thursday’s vote will be a new opportunity for Alexis Tsipras to count his troops while 30-40 Radical Left MPs opposed to the agreement, had defected during the votes of the first two floors measuring in July and that the holding of early parliamentary seems very likely in the fall .

The Athens Stock Exchange ended down 1.93% on Wednesday.