Eurogroup: Agreement in principle over major reforms with measures reaching 1% of GDP for 2019 and 1% of GDP for 2020 – Countervailing measures under conditions – Institutions are returning to Athens

Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem announced an agreement over the basic elements of the major reforms after the meeting of Finance Ministers of Eurozone in Valletta, Malta.

The heads of negotiators will return in Athens “as soon as possible” in order to achieve a completed staff-level agreement.

“We have achieved significant progress on the second review since the last Eurogroup in March. We changed the strategy, we intensified the talks between the Institutions and Greek Goevernment».

He also added:

«We’ve agreed on a 2% reform package, 1% in 2019, mainly based on pensions, 1% in 2020 in principle mainly based on personal income tax and we agreed that the Greek government can also in parallel legislate expansionary measures on the assumption that the economy is doing better and the fiscal part is doing better than expected and using the fiscal space that then will be created by these additional reforms».