Technocrats representing the country’s creditors had the first in-depth talks with Greek government officials during the previous days in Athens. In these first “reconnaissance” contacts, the two sides focused merely on fiscal and macroeconomic issues, amid concerns that Greece will fail to achieve the forecasted growth rate and will have to secure extra funds to meet the primary surplus target. Based in downtown Athens’ Hilton Hotel and not in the Ministries as was the case with the previous government, the visiting experts are meeting their Greek counterparts and collect information on the execution of the country’s budget in order to assess further measures that could be taken in the future. According to Greek newspaper “Kathimerini,” citing Brussels officials, the creditors’ technical teams will stay in Athens for about 10 days, while extra staff will join them on Monday. The additional technocrats will focus on structural reforms and the banking sector. So far, their main focus is examining fiscal and macroeconomic data, while their first concern is that there already is a fiscal gap of almost two billion euros, if Greece is going to produce the agreed primary surplus of 1%-1.5% of its GDP. For now, though, it is projected that the country is heading for a negligible surplus. This means that new measures have to be taken in order to either reduce spending or increase revenue. Regarding Greece’s growth rate, the technical teams estimate that the European Commission’s forecast for 2.5% is optimistic, even though it was only recently revised downward, but if this figure is yet again lowered, then the projected fiscal gap will further increase.
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