Brussels: After a six month delay, the Eurozone is likely to say on Tuesday that Greece has passed the reforms needed to unblock €10 billion ($11.2 billion; Dh41.2 billion) in new loans, but Athens won’t get debt relief because of differences between the bloc and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
To meet the conditions for the loans, without which Greece would again default in July, the government introduced pension and income tax reforms, as well as measures to privatise state assets and deal with bad loans.
It also approved contingency measures that would kick in automatically if Greece were to miss its primary surplus target of 3.5 per cent of GDP in 2018, as the IMF believes it will.
“I’m hopeful that we can finish the review and pay about a €10 billion loan tranche, which will take away some of the so-called Grexit pressure and hopefully brings private investors back to Greece,” Finnish Finance Minister Alexander Stubb said.
