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 A letter sent to Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem late on
Monday set out in broad terms the measures Athens plans to implement
by July, offering assurances it will not deviate from fiscal targets
or roll back past reforms.
Crucially, it pledged not to reverse any ongoing or completed
privatisations, and to ensure that the fight against what the
government calls the country's humanitarian crisis "has no negative
fiscal effects".
The six-page document with a cover note by Finance Minister Yanis
Varoufakis, seen by Reuters, contained few figures but promised to
improve tax enforcement, fight corruption and "review and control
spending in every area of government spending".
After experts from the European Commission, European Central Bank
and International Monetary Fund give an initial view of the list,
euro zone finance ministers will hold a telephone conference from
1300 GMT to finalise the four-month extension.
Greek financial markets, which reopened for the first time since
Friday's outline deal between Varoufakis and euro zone finance
ministers, surged on relief that the country had been pulled back
from the brink of a potential banking collapse and possible state
bankruptcy.
Government bond yields dropped by three percentage points and stocks
hit a 2-1/2 month high due even though the country's longer-term
survival inside the 19-nation single currency area remains
uncertain.
Dijsselbloem, who is also Dutch finance minister, told the European
Parliament the Greek reform list was just a first step and it would
take time to go into detail.
"I think they are very serious (about reforms)," he said. "But it is
not going to be easy. This is just a first step... It's going to
take time to really get into the details and to design a new
contract or agreement which will carry us on for four months."
He hinted strongly that Athens, which has had two bailouts totalling
240 billion euros since 2010, would need a further aid programme
when that period expires, saying: "I think we need to consider
further support for Greece."
The euro zone could consider further debt relief measures if Athens
met all the criteria specified in its November 2010 second bailout,
"which hasn't happened yet", he said.
GERMAN VOTE REQUESTED
A Greek exit from the euro zone had not been discussed and was not
on the table, Dijsselbloem said, adding that the only government
that had held a meeting to prepare for a possible "Grexit" was in
non-euro Britain.
In EU paymaster Germany, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who
took the toughest line in the Greek negotiations, wrote to the
speaker of the lower house of parliament requesting a vote this week
on extending the bailout.
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"Provided Greece avows its obligations and provided there is an
agreement in the Eurogroup (of finance ministers), the German
government would be in favour of the proposed extension," he wrote,
according to business daily Handelsblatt.
Germany's rejection of an initial Greek request for a four-month
loan extension last week forced Athens into a string of politically
sensitive policy concessions, postponing or backing away from
campaign promises to reverse austerity, scrap the bailout programme
and end cooperation with the "troika" of EU, ECB and IMF inspectors.
The letter said Greece would phase in collective bargaining with a
view to raising minimum wages over time but promised that any
changes would be agreed with its partners.
While leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has won broad support in
his coalition for the deal clinched in Brussels, some hardline
leftists have criticised it and the conservative opposition has
charged that his illusions have been punctured.
In a televised address on Saturday, Tsipras called the accord a
victory for Greece, but participants said Athens was isolated in the
talks and forced to make humiliating concessions because its banks
were running out of cash.
Latvia's central bank governor, a member of the ECB's policymaking
governing council, cast doubt on elements of the Greek reform plan,
such as tackling tax evasion and smuggling, questioning how much
extra revenue they would raise.
"Those are soft measures, which may partly fill the budget gaps in
the short-term, but (in the case of Latvia)… nobody planned or
budgeted it as permanent revenues," Ilmars Rimsevics told state
broadcaster LTV.
Commenting on ongoing negotiations with Greece, he said: "For
Europe, in a certain way, fatigue has set in, and this nursing and
instructing all the time is also very burdensome."
(Additional reporting by Deepa Babington in Athens, Adrian Croft in
Brussels, Erik Kirschbaum in Berlin, John Geddie in London and Aija
Krutaine in Riga; Writing by Paul Taylor; editing by Anna Willard)
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