Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 15-03-26

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] ND informal Political Council meeting rescheduled for Friday

[02] Greece changes to daylight saving time on Sunday

[03] Gov't explains why loan agreement extension will not pass from parliament

[04] Economy Minister: The negotiation will be completed at the beginning of next week

[01] ND informal Political Council meeting rescheduled for Friday

ND leader Antonis Samaras will make a statement at 12:30 on Thursday at the party's headquarters in Athens.

[02] Greece changes to daylight saving time on Sunday

[03] Gov't explains why loan agreement extension will not pass from parliament

The document was signed by State Minister Nikos Pappas and was submitted to Parliament following former Parliament President Evangelos Meimarakis' question to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. In his written reply, the State Minister said that Greece has no international obligation to pass the agreement from the parliament nor does the Greek law provides for that. He also stated that the Legal Council of State has delivered a relevant opinion on the matter.

More specifically, the State Minister's reply is the following:

"Νο new loan agreement has been signed between the Greek government and the partners, let alone an agreement of an extension of the memorandum. On February 26, 2015 the maturity date of the existing loan agreement between Greece and the European Financial Stability Facility / European Support Mechanism (EFSF / ESM) was extended until the end of June this year. The extension of the loan agreement has been signed by all parties. As there is no international requirement of our country, the ESM requires no further ratification process, in addition to Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis' signature. The Greek law likewise does not provide for the ratification of the extension of the loan agreement for the same reason.

The signing of the extension of the loan agreement is accompanied by a Finance Minister's document of political initiatives, which was submitted to the Eurogroup and was published. The content of this document does not constitute a contract and there is no reason to be ratified by the Parliament. The Legal Council of State delivered a relevant opinion on February 25, 2015. The new agreement with the partners that will occur after the expiration of the extension of the existing loan agreement will be obviously submitted for ratification to parliament, according to the Constitution."

Former Parliament President Meimarakis had asked to be informed when the government will brief the Parliament and the Greek people for the content of the agreement signed by the Minister of Finance and "when the agreement for the extension of the memorandum will be submitted for approval in the Parliament."

[04] Economy Minister: The negotiation will be completed at the beginning of next week

Stathakis said that the so-called reforms package, which will be formed exclusively from the Greek side and will be approved by our partners, will be submitted and on the other hand the approval will 'unlock' the financing in order the liquidity problem that is facing the Greek economy to be solved.

The minister rejected that the negotiation is the continuation of the memorandum and supported that from now on the basis of whatever discussion is the February 20 Eurogroup agreement. Based on this agreement "the evaluation will be completed at the end of the four-month period and afterwards we will close a new agreement with our partners."

He clarified that the final plan to tackle the bad loans' 'thorn' needs at least 5-6 months to be completed. He noted that the government is considering the establishment of a public entity to which all the bad loans of the families that are at the poverty line will be transferred as well as of those families that saw their income decrease dramatically because of the crisis.

Stathakis referred to the VAT issue claiming that there is a margin for small-scale changes that will make VAT institution more progressive, friendly and just adding that these improvements will not refer to VAT on the islands.

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