Reuters — Greece will not pass any more revenue-raising measures beyond what is agreed in its bailout package, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was quoted as saying on Wednesday, as a stand-off with international lenders ground on.
A review of the country’s bailout reforms is currently stalled over differences on fiscal targets as well as labour and energy reforms. Euro zone finance ministers were expected to discuss Greece at a meeting in Dublin on Thursday, but no conclusion to the bailout review was expected.
“We have categorically stated that there is no case of legislating even a euro’s worth of additional measures beyond those outlined in the (bailout) agreement, and particularly not for the post-programme period,” Tsipras told the I Efimerida Ton Syntakton daily in an interview.
The IMF, which is currently not a participant in the most recent bailout package, says that unless Athens adopts more austerity measures and legislates them upfront the surplus will only reach 1.5 percent.
Greece has offered to extend until 2019 a contingency mechanism which would automatically cut outlays to keep fiscal targets but has ruled out anything more permanent, including legislating measures.
“Any demand to legislate additional measures, with an element of conditionality, is not only alien to the Greek constitution, but to the rules of democracy,” Tsipras said.
