Greek FinMin welcomes Eurogroup decision on debt

Greek Finance Minister Christos Staikouras on Monday welcomed a landmark Eurogroup decision to activate debt settlement measures worth 6 billion euros for Greece.

“This decision acknowledges that following the country’s exit from the enhanced supervision status in August, a new chapter for the country and our economy – despite multiple external crises – has opened, with a positive course and favorable prospects,” the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (AMNA) reported Staikouras as saying.

The Eurogroup welcomed “the assessment by the European institutions that, despite the challenging circumstances due to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, Greece has taken the necessary actions to complete its specific commitments and that the necessary conditions are in place to confirm the release of a final tranche of policy-contingent debt measures,” it said in a statement.

Staikouras said that the decision confirms that Greece continues to implement reforms and its National Plan for Recovery and Resilience.

“The global instability created by the war in Ukraine underscores the need to continue tackling decisively the existing medium-term risks and challenges identified in the first post-program surveillance report, including the effective functioning of the non-performing loan secondary market, the primary health care reform, the codification of the labor legislation, ongoing reforms in the financial sector, the clearance of arrears, legacy backlogs of pending households insolvency cases and state guarantees, as well as the implementation of the Sale and Lease Back Organization to ensure the full implementation of the insolvency framework,” the Eurogroup said in its statement.

Staikouras said the government will continue working with a plan to make Greece stronger and its economy more dynamic, productive, export-oriented and socially fair, according to the AMNA.