Greek government and Troika agreed they disagree - New crucial round of negotiations today

After 14 hours of meetings until 5 in the morning, the Greek government and troika agreed that they disagree. Both sides keep their stance on all open issues, proving that the estimates and statements the deal could close on Sunday or today, and get a positive announcement from the troika, were rather premature.

The Greek government will not back off from its "red lines" and gives a fight for the social dividend it wants to distribute before the elections, while its lenders insist mainly on issues of interest to foreign companies and investors interested in Greece. For this they request the deregulation of collective layoffs in the private sector, elimination of the three-year bonus period, new layoffs in the public sector in 2015 and changes regarding milk and pharmacies under the OECD recommendations.

The new round of meetings between Yannis Stournaras and troika is expected in the afternoon. "The critical day is today and in the afternoon we will have a picture if we will close it tonight. My guess is that we can come to an agreement until Tuesday but the troika has to leave," a senior economy team official said Monday morning.

However, the meeting for final agreement on all fronts until Sunday is lost and postponed until tomorrow or later. "We are very close on all issues, I cannot confidently say that we are finishing, but I do not rule it out. If we do not close today we will in the coming days," a leading Finance Ministry member said.

Stop on benefits

Moreover, the government is pushed for the social dividend. "I think the essence of the problem is that they did not expect such a high primary surplus and now have trouble explaining to their superiors the forecasts they made in September," a Finance Ministry source said.

The government estimates that "after agreeing on a technical level, proceedings will be commenced at European level for the disbursement of the tranche that will require days. The magnitude of the country’s needs suggests that there will not be only one tranche."

Layoffs and three-year bonus periods

Earlier, when the meeting between Yannis Vroutsis and Vasilis Gkegkeroglou for the labour issues ended, a top official of the Labour Ministry said “I can say that for the 3.9% we are very close, for the three-year bonus periods we are on track as they will remain with separate actions for the long-term unemployed, but there is no convergence on collective layoffs.”

On the issue of redundancies in the public sector, discussed earlier yesterday with  Administrative Reform Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis it was found that the troika insists on a target number for layoffs in 2015 too, but this is something that the Greek government is rejecting. However, troika withdrew its request for additional reductions in benefits to civil servants.

The meeting of Development Minister Kostis Hadjidakis for the OECD measures revealed that the troika accepted Greece’s positions only on commercial leases. In the rest of the open issues troika keeps a hard stance and is asking for their full deregulation.