New tension has been created between Athens and creditors as the draft laws aimed at tackling the humanitarian crisis and giving debtors to the state the chance to repay in 100 installments have been considered unilateral moves, contrary to the February 20 agreement. European Commission representative Declan Costello, who is part of the Brussels Group monitoring the progress of reforms in Athens, sent a letter to the Greek government on Tuesday vetoing the bills, according to journalist Paul Mason who claims to have seen the correspondence between Costello and Athens. According to the Greek finance ministry, the bills on the humanitarian crisis and the 100-installment repayment scheme were part of the seven actions Yanis Varoufakis submitted to the latest Eurogroup meeting. A Greek government spokesperson said that calling the bill to tackle the humanitarian crisis a “unilateral act” goes against European Union values. He also said that such claims are blackmailing techniques and the new government will not succumb to any form of blackmail. The Greek government went to counter-attack claiming that the lenders’ representatives act like the old Troika, even though they are low-rank officials. “They are taking the old memorandum and are supervising Greek government representatives based on the targets of the old (scrapped) plan,” a government official said. Also, according to the same source, the technocrats have the inclination to criticize and they are often pushy and patronizing towards the Greek officials who participate in the monitoring procedures. At the same time, creditors are frustrated because on Tuesday Athens refused to update euro zone peers at a scheduled teleconference on the grounds that discussions should be escalated at Thursday’s European Union summit. A representative of Greece’s creditors said that talks between them and the Athens technical team are getting nowhere. Creditors say that the Greek debt is something to be discussed at the Eurogroup and that Greece is not on the agenda for the EU summit, where the issues of Ukraine and Russia will be discussed.
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