Tsakalotos: No bail-ins for depositors

Following Wednesday’s 5-hour long meeting with the institutions’ representatives, Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos reassured Greek depositors that there would be no ‘hair-cuts’ on their money, according to Reuters news agency. Tsakalotos said that the issue of bank recapitalization was on the table of discussion during the meeting. “Both we and the creditors want the procedure (recapitalization) to end as soon as possible, meaning by the end of the year”, said Tsakalotos. He added that the Greek negotiating team and the creditors concurred that there would be no bail-ins for depositors. The Greek government hopes to wrap up the agreement within the next 10 days. Government sources say the thorny issues of Labor reforms including mass dismissals, group contracts, etc, were agreed to be touched upon later in Autumn. The two sides were mainly concerned with prioritizing the reforms and laying the timetable for the most pressing reforms, Tsakalotos said. The other important issue of the ‘super-Fund’ planned to sell off 50 billion worth of Greek assets was also on the agenda of talks, however there was no agreemnet on how it would operate or whether it would undertake privatizations already under the control of the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (TAIPED). The technical groups are expected to talk about the macroeconomic matters Thursday.