Greek bailout talks shift into higher gear

The talks with Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and Economy Minister Giorgos Stathakis follow preparatory meetings in the Greek capital this week between lower-level officials on reforming the tax system and labor market regulations.

The third bailout will include a new punishing round of austerity measures heaped on a country reeling from a six-year recession and more than 25 percent unemployment. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has pledged to back the new cutbacks, while openly admitting that he disagrees with them.

“We will implement them, yes, because we are forced to,” he said in parliament today. “But at the same time we will struggle to change them, to improve them and to counter their negative consequences.” 

The bailout talks with the IMF, European Commission, European Central Bank and European Stability Mechanism must be concluded before August 20. That’s when a debt repayment to the ECB worth 

more than 3 billion euros is due - money which Greece does not have.

Friday’s meetings came hours after Tsipras defeated a bid by dissenters in his left-wing Syriza party to push for an end to bailout negotiations and seek a return to the old national currency, the drachma.

The party’s governing central committee backed a proposal by Tsipras to hold an emergency party conference in September, after the talks have been concluded.

Dissenters had sought a conference earlier, pressing the government to abandon the negotiations.

Tsipras effectively lost his majority in parliament in a vote three weeks ago, when nearly one-fourth of Syriza’s lawmakers refused to back new austerity measures, arguing that the party has betrayed the anti-austerity platform that got it elected in January.