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Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 16-10-11Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>CONTENTS
[01] Government meeting agrees on measures to help alleviate impact of refugee crisis on SamosMinisters and local authority officials met at the Maximos Mansion on Tuesday to discuss the refugee and migration crisis, focusing on the Aegean island of Samos. They agreed on the need to decongest reception centres on the island and improve conditions at the open hospitality facilities, especially for vulnerable groups and unaccompanied minors. The meeting was chaired by Minister of State responsible for coordinating government work Alekos Flambouraris.They also agreed on the need to speed up the procedures of asylum and refugee committees, while reinforcing the local Asylum Service with additional staff, whose numbers will increase from three in June to 28 in November. Lastly, they agreed on the necessity to set up a closed reception facility on the island. Regarding the last issue, local officials proposed that the closed facility be set up within the Reception and Identification Centre but Alternate Migration Policy Minister Yiannis Mouzalas disagreed with the suggestion on security grounds. The meeting agreed that the flow of migrants and refugees from Turkey should continue to be monitored even more closely and that non-governmental organisation should only undertake action after consulting with Mouzalas and with the agreement of regional and municipal authorities. Finally, they decided that there should be special measures for the relief of Samos residents, to help them cope with the financial and social repercussions of the refugee crisis, to be made more specific in a meeting between local authority officials, Samos MP Dimitris Sevastakis and Deputy Economy Minister Alexis Charitsis. Officials attending the meeting, in addition to Flambouraris and Mouzalas, included Alternate Defence Minister Dimitris Vitsas, Alternate Labour and Social Solidarity Minister Theano Fotiou, Deputy Economy Minister for NSRF issues Alexis Charitsis, Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister Terens Quick, the head of Mouzalas' office Pavlos Adaktylidis, North Aegean Region Authority head Christina Kalogirou, Samos MP Dimitris Sevastakis, Samos Mayor Michalis Angelopoulos, Samos Deputy Mayor Paraskevas Papageorgiou and the president of Samos' Harbour Fund Elissaios Mavratziotis. [02] Appointments of privatisation 'hyper-fund' supervisory board published in government gazetteThe appointments by order of Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos of the first Supervisory Board of Greece's new privatisation fund - the Hellenic Holdings and Properaties Company SA - were published in the Government Gazette on Tuesday.The five members of the Supervisory Board will be Georgios Staboulis, Georgios-Spiros Tavlas, Olga Haritou, Jacques Le Pape and David Vegara. Also attached were the CVs of the five board members. According to sources, Le Pape will serve as chairman of the Supervisory Board and will be elected, along with his deputy, at the its first session. During Monday's Eurogroup, Eurozone finance ministers asked that the appointment of the new privatisation's fund board be treated as a priority issue, so that the fund will be fully operational before the end of 2016, in the framework of the second review of the third Greek bailout programme. [03] EuroVR conference on virtual and augmented reality to be held in Athens on Nov. 22-24The non-profit European Association for Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality - EuroVR will hold its annual conference in Athens on November 22-24. The "EuroVR Conference 2016" is the sector's 14th annual conference and will be carried out in cooperation with the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) Institute of Communications and Computer Systems.Alongside the conference, there will be an exhibition where companies active in the sector will present their products and services. Radical developments in Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality are expected to transform the ways in which people communicate, travel, have fun and consumer over the coming decades. [04] Fitch sees improved relations between Greece and its creditors, 1.8 pct growth in 2017The Eurogroup's decision to disburse bailout funding to Greece indicated improved relations with its creditors, Fitch Ratings said in a press release on Tuesday. The 1.7 billion euros due to be disbursed for arrears clearance later in October supported forecasts for a "moderate pick-up of GDP" in the current year, followed in 1.8 pct growth in 2017, the rating agency said.At the same time, the decision also indicated the "continuing challenges to programme implementation," Fitch noted and warned that the "risk that the programme goes off track remains high". "Progress in meeting the milestones has been slower than expected, even though they are less demanding than the earlier measures required under the first programme review, such as pension and income tax reform. We think this reflects the Greek government's competing policy priorities and relatively weak domestic political ownership of the programme." "The majority of the milestones were legislated over the last month, in a single bill, with the earlier delay underlining the government's slim majority and ideological opposition in parliament to some programme reforms," the press release said. Fitch Ratings said that labour market reform would probably prove the toughest component of the second programme review and predicted that the negotiations on this might slip into next year, while noting that the prospect of debt relief could play a key role as primary budget surplus targets became harder to meet: "The prospect of government debt relief could become an important driver of programme compliance if it incentivises the Greek authorities to meet programme conditions. However, we think it could have the opposite effect if the Greek government and population come to view substantial debt relief as distant or unlikely." Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article |
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