Ντομπρόφσκις: Greece is on a good path

The Commission will insist on the predictions of and has every reason to expect that Greece will achieve its fiscal goals, said…
in an interview in Euractiv.com the European Commission vice-president Valdis Ντομπρόφσκις.
At the same time, called on all sides to make “one final effort” in order to bridge the gaps and to successfully complete the second evaluation, without, however, specifying a specific date.
Initially, the vice-president of the Commission reiterated the consistent position of the Commission that its priority is to ensure the completion of the second assessment, as well as the involvement of the IMF in the Greek program, having as a basis the treaty of the ESM.
The question of whether all member states of the Euro area need to be clear that they trust the forecasts of the european Commission for Greece, given that the German finance minister calls for additional precautionary measures, the vice-president of the european Commission avoided to answer, saying that the Commission is persisting in the data.
“As for our forecasts, as the European Commission will certainly insist that in our data. If we see basically the actual results of economic growth and budgetary performance, Greece has much better performance. Did you have a good 2015, 2016, and we expect growth this year.
He continued, saying that also, in 2016, the Greece had outperformer, mainly with regard to the target surplus.
“We have every reason to expect that Greece is on track to meet its target of a primary surplus this year as well as to bridge the gap of 2.5% of surplus the next,” he said.
“Discussions are currently ongoing and one of the elements is also to bridge the gap between our forecasts and those of the IMF, which is more pessimistic. We want to see how you tackle this issue.”
No reason for negative scenarios
Asked whether the european Commission shares the opinion of the head of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem that any exit of the IMF from the Greek program will lead to a bankruptcy of Athens, the Ντομπρόφσκις replied that it was not going to sketch “no negative scenario”.
“Because at this stage when one looks at Greece finally returns to the development and υπεραποδίδει to the budgetary objectives it is important that all sides make a final effort to complete the evaluation, both the Institutions, the IMF, the Eurogroup and the Greek government and the parliament.
With regard to whether there will be agreement on 20 February in the context of the scheduled Eurogroup, pointed out that given the conditions I don’t want to focus the parties on a specific date but to the substance of the negotiations and reiterated that it must be done “from all of a final effort”.
Finally, the question of whether the download προοληπτικών measures have the consent of the opposition, the European Commissioner underlined that he does not want to interfere in the internal affairs of the country and that we must find an agreement in principle.