Initiate talks between Greece and creditors – The Economist

The Greek government and Brussels seek the conclusion of negotiations in mid-August

The representatives took more than a year without going to Athens.; the visits were in Paris to avoid protests. Photo AFP

Representatives of Greece’s creditors begin talks in Athens with the Greek authorities on a new international loan, said the European Commission and the IMF (IMF).

“The teams will arrive in Athens and the meetings begin immediately,” he told AFP a spokesman for the Commission.

The spokesman did not say whether the Teams will be integrated in a first time only expert or also include heads of delegation of the four institutions concerned. The European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB), the IMF, and the European Stability Mechanism

However, an IMF spokesman told AFP that the institution sent to Greece only to a “technical team”.

“A technical team will start working in Athens to see how it has evolved situation, “the spokesman said in an email, without giving further details.

A source at the Greek Ministry of Finance had said that heads of mission would arrive in Athens on Thursday, and that discussions would begin tomorrow .

“The backwardness of heads of mission is due to technical reasons rather than political or diplomatic,” said a Greek source.

Athens and its creditors seek to complete the negotiation of a new three-year loan to Greece with a value of over 82,000 million euros, which agreed to the Greek government and the leaders of the euro area on 13 July.

The Greek government and Brussels want these negotiations culminate here in “the second half of August”.

Greece, whose coffers are empty, must repay 3,190 million euros to the ECB on 20 August and 1,500 million euros to the IMF in September.

The return to Athens of representatives of creditors, who have served the country close to 240,000 million euros since 2010, was imposed on Greece in the agreement of July 13.

The representatives of the creditors, known as the Troika, led more than a year without going to Greece, and his visits had moved to Paris last September, to avoid protests.