The Greek Prime Minister, Lucas Papademos, has today praised the letter sent by the New Democracy leader, Antonis Samaras, to the President of the European Commission, José Barroso, the Eurogroup President, Jean-Claude Juncker, and the director general of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde. Papademos, who was speaking during a meeting of the Council of Ministers, said that the letter will be examined by the Eurogroup on Tuesday November 29. The Prime Minister said that he was confident that the outcome would be a positive one. In the next few days, four other letters, by Papademos himself, the Finance Minister, Evangelos Venizelos, the Pasok leader, George Papandreou and the President of Greece’s central bank, George Provopoulos, will be sent to the same recipients.
Venizelos said that the procedure to exchange government bonds would be complete by the end of January, while talks between the Greek government and the “troika” (IMF, EU and ECB) on the new economic programme, an integral part of the agreement reached at the EU summit of October 26, will begin on December 12. Meanwhile, after the likely resolution to the issue of the sixth tranche of aid, Papademos appears determined to go ahead with urgent reforms and clear up some of the issues that have been “frozen” over the last few months. To this end, he announced during today’s Council of Ministers that a government commission would be set up. Media reports suggest that the commission will include ministers only, with no deputy ministers or undersecretaries, allowing more frequent meetings with which to follow the implementation of new measures.
See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter.com. Contact our newsroom to report an update or send your story, photos and videos. Follow GR on Google News and subscribe here to our daily email!
