“Greece is completing its journey to normalcy,” a European official told reporters in Brussels today ahead of the June 16 Eurogroup meeting in Luxembourg.
“Greece has come a long way in the last 12 years and is now on a sustainable path. This is the result of many years of effort and determination and deserves recognition,” he said. “The end of enhanced surveillance will “is another milestone for Greece to complete its course in European normalcy.”
The same official said that towards the end of the summer, the Commission is expected to say that there is no reason to extend the status of enhanced supervision for Greece and to announce the end of the process in August.
“This is an important moment, although the end of enhanced supervision does not mean that the work is fully completed,” the official said, adding that the Greek authorities have pledged to continue pursuing a stable and prudent fiscal policy. reform efforts, while also committing to implement the remaining outstanding issues in the second half of the year. The same official explained that Greece ‘s political commitments will be monitored in the context of regular post – program monitoring and in the context of the European Semester. He also added that there is a whole surveillance machine around the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience plans, which also applies to Greece.
Greece’s 14th enhanced monitoring report is on the Eurogroup agenda and, as the European official noted, the report is positive, despite difficult conditions due to the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the impact on energy prices. According to the Commission, the report could be the basis for the Eurogroup to give the green light for the disbursement of 748 million euros to Greece – an amount that concerns the implementation of Greek debt relief measures.
Regarding the final installment of the debt measures, the European official said that it will be evaluated in the context of the first post-program report in November. “I expect the Eurogroup to be very supportive of the disbursement of the installments related to the debt relief measures and the normal supervision of Greece”, he added and noted that this will be reflected in a statement of the Eurogroup.
Finally, the Eurogroup will discuss the banking union and the preparations for the June Summit. Post-program supervision reports for Cyprus, Portugal, Ireland and Spain will also be discussed, as well as the convergence report on the introduction of the euro from Croatia. The ECB will brief the eurozone finance ministers on the latest decisions of the Governing Council.
SOURCE: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ
Source: Capital
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