The Eurozone Finance Minister’s held a teleconference on Greece’s reform plans and a four-month extension of its bailout, with the participation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde, the European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi and the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs Pierre Moscovici. The Greek reforms list submitted earlier today was finally approved by the country’s partners and the newly elected SYRIZA-led government can now proceed with their implementation. The Greek government’s list of proposals, that was leaked earlier this morning, includes commitments on tax policy, public finance management, revenue administration, public spending, social security reform, public administration and corruption, installment schemes, banking and non-performing loans, privatization and public asset management, labor market reforms, product market reforms, judicial system reforms and the humanitarian crisis. The list was emailed by the Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis to the creditor’s institutions; the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who chaired the teleconference, posted on his personal twitter account this morning specifying the exact time of the conference at 1 p.m. GMT, while it lasted more than one hour. The European Parliament has confirmed that the Finance Ministers have approved extending Greece’s bailout program by four months. The Eurogroup approval statement on Greece’s bailout program is as follows: The Eurogroup today discussed the first list of reform measures presented by the Greek authorities, based on the current arrangement, which will be further specified and then agreed with the institutions at the latest by the end of April. The institutions [IMF/ECB/EU] provided us with their first view that they consider this list of measures to be sufficiently comprehensive to be a valid starting point for a successful conclusion of the review. We therefore agreed to proceed with the national procedures with a view to reaching the final decision on the extension by up to four months of the current Master Financial Assistance Facility Agreement. We call on the Greek authorities to further develop and broaden the list of reform measures, based on the current arrangement, in close coordination with the institutions in order to allow for a speedy and successful conclusion of the review.
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