Head of task force to Greece reviews progress at European Parliament session

Conditions are ripe for an agreement that could restart all large-scale roadworks projects in Greece, provided Parliament approves it, Horst Reichenbach, head of the European Commission task force for Greece, said in Brussels on Tuesday.

At the session of the European Parliament's Budgetary Control Committee that met to review the implementation of financial assistance from the EU budget in Greece, Reichenbach reviewed the successful outcome of the task force proposals on out-of-court settlement of differences and on the founding of a general secretariat to coordinate the government's work.

The task force will remain in Greece for another two years, he said, but the success of its mission depends on the government's will to promote infrastructural changes in the economy. He said that although the government had completed important tasks, the Greek banking sector will face problems for a long time and said that infrastructural funds can contribute to the liquidity issue.

Former minister Stefanos Manos, who attended the hearing, said that the main problem in Greece is lack of a political will to initiate drastic changes in the public sector and restrict it and to combat tax evasion, and called on Reichenbach to pay attention to small projects as well.

At the hearing, a European Commission representative said that Greece had absorbed 56 pct of the structural funds allotted, above the EU average, while a spokesperson of the Bruegel think-tank, based in Brussels, criticised the Commission over its faulty programme for the Greek economy.

Source: Athens News Agency