Stournaras renews appointment with troika for Tuesday
Troika representatives are due to meet Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras after an inconclusive meeting that lasted almost four hours on Sunday.
Neither side made comments after Sunday’s meeting but it is believed that Greece and its lenders have yet to agree on the potential size of next year’s fiscal gap, with Athens believing it will be around 500 million euros and the troika putting it at 2 billion euros or more.
Finance Ministry said specific numbers were not discussed but the two sides did talk about what measures could be taken next year. The troika also asked for more information from the Greek government before resuming discussions on Tuesday.
A number of other subjects, such as pensions, the overhaul or closure of state companies and the state of Greek banks were also discussed on Sunday.
Speaking in Parliament on Sunday, Stournaras said this year’s primary surplus would be 0.4 percent of GDP, which would be equal to more than 700 million euros – about twice as much as has been estimated in the calculations for the 2014 draft budget.
Troika officials were also due to meet Administrative Reform Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday afternoon to discuss staff reductions in the public sector but the talks were postponed.
