Euclid Tsakalotos

Representatives of Greece’s creditors are meeting with Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and Economy Minister George Stathakis as part of continued negotiations on  the country’s third bailout program. IMF Representative Delia Velculescu was the first to arrive for breakfast at the Athens Hilton at around 8 a.m.

On the one hand, IMF Chief Christine Lagarde sends a representative of the IMF – Delia Velculescu to Greece and invites Athens to trust the values of the agreement and to support these changes, on the other hand the Prime minister invites his ministers to handle ‘existence’ issues in SYRIZA, and looks at the numbers game of the internal factions within the Party.

The Athens Exchange Market (ATHEX) will open on August 3, officials met at the Bank of Greece (BoG) Wednesday. The decision follows concerns raised by Greek Bank managers due to complications arising from parallel use of ‘new’ and ‘old’ cash in the Greek banking system.

The ECB, the Bank of Greece (BoG) and the Association of Greek Banks, in conjunction with Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos decided tom relax the measures in place regarding ATM cash withdrawals in order to avoid long queues on Fridays and facilitate.

The technical groups of the Troika of Greece’s international creditors from the European Commission (EC), European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) – along with representatives from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) from which Greece hopes to syphoon funds – are in Athens.

The government extended an invitation to the …International Monetary Fund (IMF) to join talks with its European creditors over a third bailout agreed to, in principle, this month, given that negotiations with lenders need to conclude by Aug. 20.

“We were defeated, by the victory by our opponents was Pyrrhic,” Greek PM Alexis Tsipras said from Parliament’s podium an hour after midnight on Thursday morning, in yet another late, late night debate in Greece’s parliament over bailout terms, conditions and agreements.

A majority of Parliament MPs on Wednesday approved asecond package of prior actions, linked with a third bailout, via an emergency procedure. The ruling Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA), junior coalition rightist Independent Greeks (ANEL), main coalition New Democracy, centrist Potami and socialist PASOK party voted in favor.

Yanis Varoufakis took to his blog (yet again!) to focus on what he claimed were European creditors’ “vindictive privatization plan for Greece”, as outlined in an article he wrote for the Project Syndicate, which bills itself as a global platform for statesmen, policymakers, intellectuals and activists.

Chancellor Angela Merkel was to rally German lawmakers on July 17 to back talks for a new Greece bailout deal, a day after the parliament in Athens grudgingly agreed to harsh reforms.