Troika insists on new measures in 2014 as well

Troika is preparing austerity measures, as it does not accept the Greek positions for "strong primary surplus" in 2013, sees a budgetary gap in 2014 too, while its technical teams prepare for visits to the Finance Ministry and the General Accounting Office.
 
"We have a lot of work," a member of the mission of foreign auditors said leaving the office of Yannis Stournaras earlier today. This meeting opened the second round of negotiations between the troika and Greek ministers, the Bank of Greece and the HRADF.
 
The government intends to reach an initial agreement until March 8 so that the eurogroup of 10 March will decide on the disbursement of the tranche.
 
Everything is possible for the layoffs in the public sector
 
The meeting with Administrative Reform Minister this morning was in a good climate, both sides expressed satisfaction on issues of availability, layoffs, and reforms in the public sector and accepted that the objectives in relation to the redundancies in 2013 and the course of availability are within the mutual agreement.
 
However, the question whether the 1,700 employees who recently left the public sector but remained there until recently with injunctions by courts, will count towards the 15,000 redundancies remained unsolved.
 

Mitsotakis and the representatives of Greece’s lenders will meet again in the coming days perhaps even during this weekend.