Positive climate between Lenders and Greece: Scicluna

A positive climate exists between Greece and its lenders according to ECOFIN Council chairperson Edward Scicluna, who is also Malta’s finance minister.

Scicluna made the comments to the Athens News agency expressing the view that the current climate between Greece and its lenders is conducive to fully restoring trust between all parties.

Asserting that the relations between Greece and its lenders have improved significantly and are not threatened by a new crisis, Scicluna’s comments come nonetheless at a time where the IMF is clashing with Germany over Greece’s ‘unstastainable’ debt.

“I can say that the climate is much better so I do not see another crisis on the horizon. Of course there are differences but not as those we had in the past” he noted. I believe the economic climate helps Greece. It is not a matter of commitments but of proof that the results are better than those expected, even of a small scale but still very encouraging” he said adding that the condition helps because we do not have the ‘tensions’ we experienced before.

On Eurogroup’s request for an automatic contingency mechanism or the legislation of precautionary measures in case something goes wrong he said that “these requests were made in a period that uncertainty and lack of trust prevailed”.

“I believe that if confidence is fully restored and with less uncertainty, this request will be less strong and an agreement will be reached. I can’t speak for the Eurogroup but my impression is that when the period of uncertainty and lack of confidence is over, the requests for measures in case the whole issue collapses will be less. I can reassure you, without any commitment, that the prevailing climate has helped and that something will be found that will be less demanding that it was in the beginning” concluded the Maltese minister.