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The
Commission comments were in response to remarks by a German
government official in the Bild daily, that reaching a deal by
Aug 20, when Greece has to buy back 3.5 billion euros of its
bonds from the European Central Bank, was "not achievable".
"What President Juncker himself said yesterday in an interview
remains valid that the negotiations with the Greek authorities
are 'progressing in a satisfactory way', that he believes 'an
agreement this month preferably before August 20 is possible'
because, as you know, August 20 is the date for an important
payment to the ECB," Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said.
"We believe that this is an ambitious and yet possible
timetable," she told a daily news briefing in response to a
question about the Bild story.
She said that since the negotiations with Athens were conducted
by the Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the
European Stability Mechanism, they were better placed to assess
progress than government officials.
"In line with the ESM treaty and also based on a mandate given
by member states the talks and an assessment of progress are
being done by the Commission together with the IMF as well as
the ESM in this case. Our teams are on the ground now since
almost two weeks and they report satisfactory progress," she
said.
She said EU deputy finance ministers would discuss the state of
talks in a teleconference on Friday evening.
(Reporting By Barbara Lewis and Jan Strupczewski)
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