“We are in a tough phase,” Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis said during a meeting with Greek President Karolos Papoulias. “In this interim period, nerves are stretched on all sides. It’s not just us, it’s also on the side of the lenders.”
The two sides are mainly at odds over the projected size of a budget gap for 2015, a senior Greek government official told Reuters. The lenders argue the government’s plan to let Greeks repay arrears to the state in 100 instalments would widen this gap, two government officials said.
Athens agreed to remove a contentious real estate tax from the plan, but lenders are pressing for more changes, they said.
The lenders estimate that the 2015 fiscal gap will hit about 2.5 billion euros ($3.1 billion) unless the plan is changed, one of the government officials said. Athens, which is due to present its final budget in parliament this week, predicts a fiscal gap of less than 1 billion euros next year.
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