Regling praises Greece’s progress toward bailout exit

ESM chief Klaus Regling at a meeting with PM Alexis Tsipras today, called Greece a “success story”, referring to the country’s scheduled exit from the bailout memorandum in August, though he also noted that more work needs to be done.

Regling, upon his arrival at the PM’s office, congratulated Tsipras on his success in resolving the Macedonian naming issue, to which the prime minister replied that he seeks a correspondingly positive development in the economic field, an apparent allusion to debt relief.

“I feel like a chess player who is playing on two chessboards, as we are negotiating simultaneously on the economic front and on the name issue,” the PM said. “I hope that just as we had a good solution yesterday, so too next week we will have the best solution on the most important issue of the last years for the country,” Tsipras said, a reference to the 21 June Eurogroup meeting.

Regling acknowledged that Athens has done much work on the fiscal front, and he said that Greece will be the fifth success of the eurozone.

He noted that attention must now be paid to growth strategies.

“There has been much progress, and now we are near a definitive solution, which will be worthy of the sacrifices of the Greeks, a solution near the desires of Europe.”