Finance minister Yiorgos Papakonstantinou expressed optimism that agreement will be reached in the coming days on the new measures that will be taken in Greece, paving the way for approval of the disbursement of the 5th tranche of the 110 billion euros EU-IMF bailout loan to Greece, speaking on a private television station on Monday morning.
He said that agreement with the European Commission (EC), European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) 'troika' for disbursement of the 5th tranche was expected to be completed in the next few days, but stressed that decisions need to be taken for the smooth disbursement of the installment.
In an interview on private Antenna television station, Papakonstantinou also defended the decisions that have been taken by the government "so that the country will not collapse", adding that, if it were not for those moves, "the state would not have been able to pay salaries and pensions".
The finance minister acknowledged, however, that people who should not be paying were also paying.
ANA-MPA
