Eurogroup – The next disbursement for Greece to be approved

The installment disbursement approval of 765 million euros, an amount that corresponds to the profits received by the European Central Bank and the Central Banks of the Eurozone member states from the Greek bonds is given today by the Eurogroup.

It is recalled that in the 12th report on the evaluation of Greece it was found that the country has further fulfilled the commitments it has undertaken, despite the delays in some sectors, mainly due to the difficult conditions caused by the pandemic and the devastating fires in summer.

The institutions encouraged the Greek authorities to maintain momentum and correct any delays, especially in the sectors of financial reforms, of the settlement of arrears of the public sector, of health care and justice.

Moreover, today, the Hellenic Statistical Authority is expected to announce the data on the GDP evolution of the third quarter, i.e. the period July-September, when there was a substantial recovery of tourism.

The estimates of the financial staff, based on the data available so far, are that the turnover of Tourism, for the quarter of July-September, has exceeded 55% of the turnover of 2019, reaching 10.5 billion euros, compared to 25% of turnover of 2019 (approximately 4.5 billion euros), which had been achieved in the same period of 2020.

Greek FinMin in Brussels

The Greek Finance Minister, Christos Staikouras, is going to Brussels today, in order to participate in the meetings of the Eurogroup and Ecofin.

According to the program, at noon, the Minister will have a private meeting with the President of the Eurogroup, Paschal Donohoe, and, then, he will participate in the Eurogroup meeting, where, among other things, the 12th Evaluation Report of the European institutions for Greece, which was successfully completed about two weeks ago, will be discussed.

The eurozone finance ministers will also discuss the post-program supervision reports of Portugal, Cyprus, Spain and Ireland, the conclusions of the IMF report on the eurozone under Article 4, and the European Commission proposal on the recommendations for the economic policy of the euro area in 2022. It is also planned to examine the economic and budgetary situation of the euro area, on the basis of the draft budgets submitted by the Member States for the coming year. In addition, the Eurogroup work program for the first half of 2022 will be agreed.