Reuters/Athens/Berlin


Greece’s biggest creditor Germany said yesterday that the eurozone would give Athens no further financial aid until it has a more detailed list of reforms and some are enacted into law, adding to scepticism over plans presented last week.
A senior official in Brussels on Sunday had dismissed the list as “ideas” rather than a plan that Greece could submit to EU and IMF lenders to avoid running out of cash next month.
Eurozone states are still waiting for Greece to send a more comprehensive list, a German finance ministry spokesman said.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said Athens had a certain degree of flexibility on which reforms to implement but that they must “add up” to the satisfaction of European partners.
“The question is can and will Greece fulfil the expectations that we all have,” she said during a visit to Helsinki.
“There can be variation as far as which measures a government opts for but in the end the overall framework must add up.”
There was no immediate reaction from Athens on whether the list would be amended further. Lenders have said it could take several more days before a proper list was ready.
Greek and other eurozone officials from the Euro Working Group are due to discuss the reforms at 1500 GMT on April 1, a Brussels source said.
A Greek finance ministry official said the list included a lowered target of €1.5bn ($1.6bn) in proceeds from asset sales this year and a proposal to set up a bad bank with bailout funds returned to the eurozone in February.
Among the slated asset sales is a stake in the country’s biggest port, Piraeus, in which China has expressed interest.
The list also estimates Greece can raise €3.7bn this year through audits of bank transfers abroad, TV licence and e-gaming tenders, a value-added-tax lottery scheme, a crackdown on smuggling and the settlement of arrears owed to the state.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who is due to address parliament on Monday on the status of negotiations with lenders, is running out of time to convince lenders he is serious about reforms and keeping the country’s finances on track.
Greece will run out of money by April 20 without more aid, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters last week.
The reforms are a sensitive issue for Tsipras, whose cabinet late on Sunday approved the package of measures sent on Friday.
That package targets a primary budget surplus of 1.5% of national output this year – compared to a previous target of 3% in Greece’s EU/IMF €240bn ($260bn) bailout – and growth of 1.4% in 2015, down from the bailout target of 2.9%, a government official said.
Greece has also not given up on its aim to renegotiate its debt to render it manageable, its deputy finance minister said.
“The solutions are known – either there will be a haircut or it will be extended, or (repayment) will be linked to an increase in output or exports, or there will be lower interest rates,” Deputy Finance Minister Dimitris Mardas told financial daily Naftemporiki.
Greece’s public debt reached more than 177% of national output last year.
Tsipras came to power in January promising to demand that its eurozone partners let it write off a large part of that debt, but has said little about the issue in recent weeks as Greece struggles to cope with a cash crunch.
In Stockholm on Monday, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Secretary General Angel Gurria told Reuters that debt relief was not under discussion but also ruled out a Greek exit from the eurozone.
“The suggestion that a country may voluntarily exit the European Union is no longer on the cards,” he said.




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