Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 17-05-02
CONTENTS
[01] FinMin Eu. Tsakalotos: "The agreement is completed, there's white
smoke"
[01] FinMin Eu. Tsakalotos: "The agreement is completed, there's white
smoke"
The meeting between the Greek government and its lenders ended in the
early hours on Tuesday with an agreement on outstanding issues.
"The negotiation is completed, there's white smoke", Finance Minister
Euclid Tsakalotos said coming out of the meeting at a central hotel
in Athens.
He noted that the agreement reached was "a preliminary technical one"
that will open the way to talks on the debt and the staff level agreement.
Tsakalotos expressed his belief that the agreement on the debt would
move ahead now because there is no impediment to the completion of the
second review such as a lack of agreement.
The meeting began late on Monday afternoon after the lenders produced the
final drafts of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and the Memorandum
of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP). The MoU is the agreement that
will be signed with the European institutions and the MEFP will be signed
with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The outstanding issues discussed were of both major and minor importance,
including the pension system, privatisations, retail markets and the
public sector.
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