Greece advances in loan talks, under fire for euro exit plan

A man passes a discount shop in Athens

Greece pushed ahead with talks on a new rescue loan yesterday, but its government came under increasing pressure over claims it had a top-secret plan to prepare for a euro exit that involved accessing citizens’ personal tax data.
Emissaries from Greece’s international creditors held a second day of preparatory talks with Greek officials, ahead of higher-level negotiations later this week on the country’s new multi-billion euro lifeline.
The talks in Athens aim to thrash out the terms of the deal — worth about 85 billion euros (USD94 billion) over three years — before Aug. 20, when Greece must make a debt payment that it cannot afford without new loans.
It will be the country’s third bailout in more than five years. So far, Greece has received about 240 billion euros from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
In return, it was forced to implement painful spending cuts, tax increases, and wide-ranging market reforms. The austerity deepened a sharp recession, and caused unemployment to swell to a peacetime record.
This week’s talks will include an array of issues such as pensions and labor market reforms, where the government is being asked to cut early retirement, raise retirement ages, streamline the pension system and ease restrictions protecting workers from mass layoffs.
Adding to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ troubles, his former finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, has claimed that he tried to surreptitiously clone his own ministry’s tax records with the help of a childhood friend, as part of a contingency plan requested by Tsipras before the January elections. The idea, according to Varoufakis, was to set up a parallel banking system that would allow transactions to continue — in euros, but with a provision for immediate conversion to a new currency — were Greek banks to be closed down. AP