Ambiguous statement by FinMin Tsakalotos on early elections

Capital controls easing up

Speaking before parliament, Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos was cryptic when referring to the possibility of early elections. He stressed that Eurgroup guarantees all deposits, while adding that it was not the right time to go into details about who was to blame for the imposition of capital controls. On the rumors of elections he said: “Elections, from what I also hear, are coming are not the same as the ones in 2012 because now we have an agreement we did not have then”, adding that now a framework was in place concerning the recapitalization of Greek banks. The Finance Minister admitted that the government did make mistakes during the negotiations with the creditors, but added that ‘whoever negotiates hard makes mistakes’. He said that the banking system is gradually returning to normalcy as the capital controls are easing up.