Troika

Former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has blamed "hired thugs" for the assault on him on in an Athens restaurant in which his nose was fractured.

"They were not anarchists, leftists, communists or members of any movement," Varoufakis said in a tweet.

Greece is among the seven European Union countries to date to have submitted a fully formed blueprint for the utilization of resources from the Next Generation EU fund. This is according to Declan Costello, the deputy director general for economic and financial affairs at the European Commission.

A high ranking official from the Greek Finance Ministry expressed confidence that Greece and its creditors would reach a staff level agreement (SLA) by next Friday. He went to stress that only a minor issue on the labour front was open before the two parties could reach a deal.

The noise accompanying every negotiation between our government and creditors has become a tradition. And yet, each time, from Athens to Berlin and Washington everyone acts as if this is some thriller whose end we do not know.

The start of talks between the Greek Labour Minister, George Katrougalos and the country’s creditors (Troika) on Wednesday, are highly anticipated, as the Greek Minister has made it explicitly clear that Greece would not budge on the issues of massive layoffs, lock-outs, defending the right to strike and wages.

Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and Minister for Economy George Stathakis will meet with the three representatives of the country’s lenders, Tuesday, in an effort to hammer out a final agreement on the implementation of the 15 prior actions Greece has to fulfil in order for the Troika to releases the 2.8 billion tranche and for the second review of the Greek program to be co

Time is pressing upon the government, since we’ve reached May and there is still no agreement, even though the government was saying that “until Tuesday there will be a deal”. But, on the contrary, what was confirmed was that apart from the impending big package of tax measures, selling the performing loans is also on the table along with the selling of the non-performing loans.

Former Greek Finance Minister Yianis Varoufakis tweeted that the Troika was a ‘para-state’ force of ‘pseudo-technocrats’ responding to the wikileaks revelations about the conversation between Thomsen and Velculescu, Saturday. The self proclaimed ‘erratic Marxists’ said in a couple of Tweets that they were undermining Europe. ‘The unilateral targeting against Thomsen was stupid.

Panagiotis Lafazanis leader of the leftist party Popular Unity, formed from radical left SYRIZA, said the Greek citizens had turned into ‘slaves of ruthless blackmailers and guardians’ referring to the Troika and the third memorandum, Friday.

Athens is bracing itself for the return of the loathed Troika officials representing the country’s creditors from the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund.