The EuroWorking Group has directly focused on Athens’ recent progress to implement 15 “prior actions” demanded by institutional creditors, during a meeting in the Belgian capital later on Thursday. Implementing the “prior actions” is viewed as a necessary condition for freeing up a 2.8-billion-euro sub-tranche of bailout loans to the Greek state, money left over from the first tranche allocated in the spring. No decisions were taken at Thursday’s meeting, despite the Parliament’s ratification of a bill that included many of the measures, which occurred this week.
On his part, Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said three prior actions not included in the passed omnibus legislation remain to be implemented. He promised that the pending issues will close over the next few days, including a restructuring of the Civil Aviation Authority in the country and a liberalization of the entire aviation framework.
Tsakalotos also said the Greek side is certain that all pending issues will be resolved before an Oct. 10 Eurogroup meeting, although Athens must accelerate its legislative initiatives ahead of next week’s IMF summit in Washington, given that most European finance ministers and top Eurozone officials will attend the event. The two prior actions that are left for the Government to complete until the end of next week are the changes in the Political Aviation Bureau and the abolition of the fee for the Renewable Energy Sources that must be voted in the first week of October.