Merkel refers Greece to Troika for the new measures

Stournaras accepts measure up to 500 million euros - The auditors will return to Athens in November - The money to cover the budget gap will first be sought from the insurance funds

The Greek government seems to be progressing to a partial folding in front of the Troika pressure with Stournaras saying he 'does not preclude the adoption of new horizontal measures.' At the same time Samaras found a negative attitude in the brief meeting with Merkel yesterday, because she did not agree to the possibility of political negotiation to not impose additional measures, referring him to the Troika that will come back in Athens early November.

As the "Kathimerini" newspaper writes, the response from Germany to Greece's message of political negotiation is that ‘it is not for the Chancellor’ to indicate to Troika what steps should be taken and how to achieve the objectives of the Memorandum. Germany accepts that the Greek side can negotiate with the Troika about how to achieve the agreed objectives, but not to have a political debate on the contents of the Memorandum. Indicative of the German attitude is Merkel’s meeting with Cypriot President N. Anastasiadis. As Kathimerini reports, Merkel congratulated Anastasiadis for a flawless implementation of the adjustment program so far and said that 'any country that implements the Memorandum will have our support.'

In a statement to the newspaper "Ta Nea" from Brussels, Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras says that the government 'does not say no to all measures, but just the horizontal ones. We accept that Greece needs measures of 500 million euros against the 2.5 billion of Troika. But these 500 million euros must come from somewhere. And since the problem of the gap is due to the insurance funds, it is there that we must search.'

The Greek Finance ministry puts on the negotiating table a few difficult measures such as the increase of the 35 years to 40 years, despite the fact that Labour Minister Yannis Vroutsis says there will not be any new measures in the insurance issue. It should be noted, however, that if implemented this measure is likely to destroy the reduction target of civil servants by 150,000 by 2015, since many of them cannot go to retirement now, thus pushing the Greek government towards more layoffs.