the international markets and the interior of the country.
As auditors and audited could not agree until late Thursday on the key words to the result of the inspections, its preparation and announcement was postponed for a while. So the press conference that was programmed for Friday morning was postponed too.
According to information the auditors are trying to agree among them but also with the government on the basic points/worries for the program without transmitting them to citizens and investors. Furthermore, the financial team is thinking that it can use communicatively the negotiations to show that it had to give a battle to avoid the rough measures the troika wanted to implement.
The friction points:
- The future of corporate contracts and the reductions of wages in the private sector. For this the government achieved a delay of 3-6 months at least.
- The cuts to supplementary pensions which will also wait until summer.
- The austerity measure, postponed for May or June so that the social and inter-party dialogue will come first.
- The future of privatizations and mergers in banks (especially of Agriculture and Post Bank).
For these issues, besides the joint announcement by the auditors (possibly Friday afternoon) they will prepare three different reviews to be sent to Brussels, Frankfurt and Washington.
By Kostis Plantzos
source: PROTO THEMA
