Troika still waiting for Athens to implement 95 measures
The Greek government failed to implement some 95 measures by the deadline it had agreed with its creditors, according to the European Commission’s assessment report issued on Monday.
The measures that were applied in time range from the voting of the single property tax to the privatization of companies, the drafting of a strategy for the management of public sector human resources, the creation of an action plan for tackling unemployment, governmental transparency and accountability, the use of generic pharmaceuticals and the obligation of hospitals to publish their financial reports.
The list of the actions the government has been asked to complete reveals the scope of the inspections that the representatives of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – known as the troika – conduct in Greece and illustrates the extent to which public administration in this country has disintegrated.
The delay in the transfer of a total of 250 public properties to the state privatization fund (TAIPED) every three months is only partly being dealt with as most ministries have not yet submitted their full data. The government’s efforts to postpone the increase in the so-called objective values (property prices used for tax purposes) is meant to reduce the impact on poorer areas. The government put the delay in the civil servants’ mobility plan down to the presence in the three-party coalition of Democratic Left, whose departure in June is believed to have eradicated the problem.
All 95 measures the government has not fulfilled were clearly not essential for the disbursement of the latest loan installments, but some of them may soon become “prior actions” required for future tranches.
