Fresh Aid: Greece Plans to Impress Creditors With Good News

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/greece-plans-to-impress-creditors-with-good-news-a-951516.html



A SPIEGEL report that German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble is considering a third rescue package for Greece has electrified the struggling nation. Athens wants to impress its creditors with a stream of good news. But it still has a long list of unkept promises.

Fresh Aid: Greece Plans to Impress Creditors With Good News
By Giorgos Christides in Thessaloniki
February 04, 2014 – 06:06 PM

New loans are welcome, but don't ask us for any new austerity measures. This pretty much sums up Athens' reaction to Germany's reported willingness to approve further loans to Greece to cover the country's multi-billion euro projected financing gap in 2015-2016.

Although there was no official reaction to SPIEGEL's report, published on Monday, government sources say that Berlin's intentions were known to Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, adding that Germany will not pull the rug from under Greece's feet, especially with the European election due in May.

But the Greek government has also made clear that it will not accept a new round of measures or a continuation of what are perceived by many in Greece as the asphyxiating and humiliating controls by the troika of European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras is preparing Greece's position ahead of the troika's arrival. With a fresh round of bargaining looming on the new loans, he promised an avalanche of "impressively good news" in the coming days to show that Greece doesn't need any further belt-tightening. It only needs to press on with its structural reforms, he said.