Now that the third review is complete, there are only a few prior actions that have to be finished before the disbursement of the tranche in February, Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said at a press conference in Brussels on Monday.
Following a Eurogroup meeting that approved of the third review, Tsakalotos said, ?This was a very good Eurogroup for Greece. As you will have already heard (?), the agreement on the third review is complete. There are a few prior actions that have to be finished before the disbursement. Even more significant for the Greek case is that people are now convinced that things have turned round and people are beginning to talk about the future and Greece?s exit from the programme.?
He said that overall the Greek government was ?looking to the future with a greater degree of confidence that this third review is over,? and he specified that ?the fourth review will not have that many prior actions because as you know it was very front-loaded programme.?
The important discussions ahead, he said, “relate to the discussions on debt and the nature of the exit. It is also an encouraging sign that of the 6,7 bln disb 1,8 or 1,9 is for helping us to build our buffers so that we can stand on our own two feet after August 2018 and the end of the programme.”
Tsakalotos also noted the last paragraph of the Eurogroup statement announcing the review results, “there is now going to be a working group to do more work on specifying what has come to be known as the French mechanism that ties further debt to relief to growth as was agreed in the June Eurogroup meeting.”
He confirmed that there was no discussion on a precautionary credit line, and added that the form of Greece’s exit from the programme would be discussed near Easter. The buffer of 1.9 bln out of the total package of 6.7 bln euros disbursed serves as a type of credit line, he said.