Greece to submit reform plans March 9

Greece says it will submit its reform proposals to its international creditors to win approval for a four-year economic reform plan on March 9.

“I will submit a folder of six proposals and discuss with our peers which ones can be implemented immediately,” Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said on Tuesday in an interview with a local TV channel. He said that he would submit the proposals on March 9.

Greece’s government had until April to present its reform proposals to its troika of creditors in order for Prime Minster Alexis Tsipras’s government to win loans to tackle the country’s financial crisis. With the announcement that Athens is submitting the plans on March 9, the Greek government seems to be speeding the process up.

“Debt repayment should be linked to (Greece’s) growth rate. This is a red line for us,” the minister further highlighted.

Varoufakis also said that Athens would welcome private investment in state railways, but still ruled out the privatization of state electricity provider Public Power Corporation of Greece by saying, “Privatizing the energy market in the United States and Britain was a failure.”

The comments came as earlier in January, the Greek coalition government challenged international creditors by stopping the privatization plans that had been agreed upon under the country’s bailout deal. In a move that was a manifestation of Tsipras’s anti-austerity election vows, the sale of shares in the Public Power Corporation of Greece and refiner Hellenic Petroleum were halted.

Greece’s international lenders, including European Central Bank (ECB) and the IMF protested the move, warning that Athens will not receive funds to revive its cash-strapped economy until it meets the commitments agreed to by its former center-right government.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Varoufakis reiterated that Greece would meet its commitments for the March payment, adding, “March is solved. We are in the process of securing funds to cover the entire four-month period.”

On February 20, a tentative agreement was reached to extend Greece’s bailout program by four months during preparatory talks between Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde and Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem.

However, Greece was asked to submit a list of proposed reforms to the European Union (EU) in order for the agreement to take effect.

The European Commission has already accepted the list of proposed reform measures by Greece as “a valid starting point” for an agreement to secure an extension to Athens’ financial lifeline.

The government of Tsipras, whose leftist Syriza Party stormed to victory in January 25 elections, has tried to renegotiate the terms of the country’s 240-billion-euro (270-billion-dollar) bailout it received in 2010 in return for imposing harsh austerity measures.