Greece won’t be EU scapegoat, minister says
Arriving in Luxembourg on Monday for talks with his eurozone counterparts, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos told reporters that Greece had made significant progress in imposing increasingly tough reforms on an austerity-weary public and remained focused on its commitments to its foreign creditors but that it would not become the ?scapegoat of the eurozone.?
?Greece has taken all the necessary tough measures to meet its obligations to its partners,? Venizelos said. ?Greece is a country with structural difficulties but Greece is not the scapegoat of the eurozone,? he added, noting that the country had demonstrated ?the potential and the ability to move forward despite a deep recession.?
European Monetary and Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn would not comment on Greece?s progress in regulating its finances.
?We are currently assessing whether Greece will meet its fiscal targets with the current measures,? he said.
An audit of Greek finances currently being carried out by foreign inspectors is virtually complete, Alternate Finance Minister Pantelis Economou told private TV channel Mega earlier in the day.
But the auditors did not indicate when they would issue their report, which will form the basis for a decision by eurozone ministers – scheduled for October 13 – on whether to release a sixth tranche of crucial rescue funding to Greece. Without the 8-billion-euro installment this month, Greece could run out of money to pay state salaries and pensions.
In a related development, sources said a demand by Finland for Greek collateral to form part of a second bailout package for Greece would be resolved by the end of next week.
