Greece PM refuses COVID-19 aid due to strict EU conditions

On Sunday Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Prime Minister of Greece, told the Financial Times (FT) newspaper in an interview that Greece will not accept strict European Union conditions on the use of the coronavirus emergency aid.

“Greeks have matured a lot. And we want to do our own reforms”, he was quoted as saying 

A six-monthly review of economic performance carried out by the European Commission was sufficient and that there was no need for any “additional strict conditionality,” he said. 

Mitsotakis told the FT newspaer that Greece had a very “aggressive reform agenda” that would focus on “the green transition”, “the digital transition” and encouragements to investments in part through a privatisation programme. 

On Friday, the prime minister also announced in parliament new measures worth 3.5 billion euros ($4.0 billion) to support businesses hurt by a lockdown imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus outbreak. 

Greece emerged from a decade-long debt crisis in 2018 and was hopeful for a strong growth in 2020. However, the nationwide lockdown imposed earlier this year to prevent coronavirus infections has turned those expectations upside down. 

The Greek economy is expected to shrink by about 8% to 10% this year before recovering in 2021. 

Reported by Kanishka Sing 

Sourced Reuters 

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