|
Greece's current bailout, the third since 2010, expires on
August 20. Athens hopes that it will have regained full market
access by then and be free to set its own economic policy after
eight years of tight supervision by the euro zone and the
International Monetary Fund.
But some EU officials are worried that as time passes, Greek
politicians will be under increasing pressure to go on a
spending spree again.
"There is neither a bailout extension nor a fake exit, a
non-clean or a dirty exit - call it anything you want - in
sight", Tsipras told his lawmakers.
"There is a clear completion (of the program), a clean exit," he
said.
"But this doesn't mean that we will... return to the days of
plenty, the spendthrift days."
Euro zone creditors are now working on a debt relief offer for
Greece that would be an incentive for Athens not to backtrack on
reforms and to continue to stick to prudent fiscal policy,
senior EU officials said last week.
Greece will officially present its own post-bailout policy plan
at a meeting of euro zone finance ministers this week, Tsipras
said adding that he hoped that negotiations on the terms of the
post-bailout period would be concluded by the end of June.
He added that the IMF's participation in the current bailout was
still an open issue and that the climate between Athens and the
Washington-based Fund during talks in recent months had
improved.
"But we don't believe that the IMF's possible non participation
in the third bailout is the end of the world," Tsipras said.
(Reporting by Renee Maltezou; Editing by Gareth Jones)
[© 2018 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2018 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
 |
|
