"Greek finmin: extending fiscal contingency steps may break EU-IMF stalemate Greece’s official creditors are assessing its performance against reforms and fiscal targets"

"Greek finmin: extending fiscal contingency steps may break EU-IMF stalemate

Greece’s official creditors are assessing its performance against reforms and fiscal targets

Published: 18:35 December 31, 2016 Gulf News

Reuters

ATHENS: Greece is open to extending a contingency mechanism to ensure it will meet fiscal targets beyond 2018 to break a stalemate in talks with its Eurozone lenders and the IMF over its second bailout review, its finance minister said on Saturday.

Greece’s official creditors are assessing its performance against reforms and fiscal targets set in its bailout programme of up to 86 billion euros ($90.4 billion) agreed last summer, its third since its debt crisis exploded in 2010.

A rift between the European Union and the International Monetary Fund over Greece’s medium-term primary surplus targets has clouded Greek hopes for a swift conclusion of the review.

“In the extremely unlikely case that the IMF breaks its impressive series of (failed forecasts) and one of its projections is confirmed, we can describe measures that may be needed in this case,” Euclid Tsakalotos told Kathimerini newspaper in an interview.

“In this context we are discussing a commitment mechanism such as extending the budget’s automatic fiscal adjustment,” he said....

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