The Minister of Finances Yannis Stournaras met with the IMF, EU and ECB representatives this morning and came to an agreement to expedite the privatization procedures. According to the agreement between the Minister and troika representatives, the Greek state will have to collect about 1.3 billion euros from the privatizations this year.
It is very likely that Mr. Stournaras will meet the troika heads over the weekend, as there are many critical issues that still remain unresolved, such as the primary residence auctions, the VAT in food and restaurants as well as the restructure of EAS. Unless these are addressed, Greece will not collect a 1-billion-euro loan installment that was approved of in July.
A senior Ministry of Finances officer revealed that the troika will depart from Athens next week, while IMF spokesman Gerry Rice reported that the troika heads will return to Athens in January as soon as the government has achieved “further progress”.
