BRUSSELS — With euro zone finance ministers resuming talks on Greece’s intractable debt in Brussels on Tuesday, the chairman of the group declared that “Greece has delivered.”
“We must still reach an understanding on several details,” the chairman, Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, told reporters before the meeting. “I would expect that the chances are good that we will come to a final and joint solution this evening.”
Even so, that goal still could be ambitious, given the rancorous nature of recent meetings on Greece that have dragged into the night without a conclusive result.
Among the issues that still need to be resolved among members of the troika of lenders, comprising the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, is how quickly Greece should be obliged to bring its towering debt under control. The troika has demanded a set of stringent measures from the government in Athens in exchange for two bailouts totaling €250 billion.
Late Monday, the authorities in Athens signed off on decrees intended to satisfy the outstanding demands of the country’s foreign lenders. The decrees, a type of emergency measure that does not require parliamentary approval, come a little more than a week after the government approved a new raft of €17 billion, or $ 22 billion, in austerity measures and overhauls to be carried out over the next four years.
One decree adopted Monday requires that money raised from the privatization of state assets be paid directly into an escrow account held by the Greek central bank to ensure the funds go toward paying off state debt. The account was set up in March under the terms of Greece’s second international bailout.
That decree also calls for tougher supervision of spending by ministries and state enterprises. It grants the Finance Ministry greater powers to oversee other ministries and calls for the appointment of inspectors to monitor spending at departments that fail to meet their fiscal targets for two consecutive quarters. Top officials whose departments miss their targets face the prospect of having their salary cut or being laid off. Local agencies that fail to get their finances in order must raise additional tax revenue to meet their goals.
A second decree sets out cuts to the salaries and pensions of parliamentary employees who, with bonuses, earn the equivalent of up to 16 monthly salaries annually. That would bring their pay into line with that of other civil servants.
State workers, who have vowed to overturn some of the overhauls imposed by Greece’s creditors, including plans to push 2,000 employees into a fast-track layoff program this year, continued to stage sit-ins at hundreds of city halls and municipal offices across the country.
Despite the upheaval, the authorities remain focused on pushing through measures intended to secure the release of more than €30 billion in fresh rescue loans that Greece needs to avoid default. Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said late Sunday that Athens had done its bit.
“We are fully ready for Tuesday,” he said. “There are no outstanding issues on our side.”
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who is struggling to hold together an increasingly fragile coalition, hopes that a final push by Athens to tie up loose ends may lead to movement on the release of the aid and on the financing of a two-year extension to the country’s fiscal adjustment period.
Niki Kitsantonis reported from Athens.
'Greece Has Delivered,' European Official Says
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