Brussels (AFP)
The new Greek Prime Minister, the conservative Kyriakos Mitsotakis, elected on Sunday, will have to respect "the commitments" on the debt taken by his predecessor vis-à-vis the creditors, warned Monday the head of the euro zone.
"My advice (to the new government, ed), it would be to meet the commitments," said Mario Centeno, president of the Eurogroup, after a meeting between the finance ministers of the euro area in Brussels. "This is the only way I know to gain credibility," he added.
"Commitments are commitments, if we break them, credibility will be the first thing to collapse, leading to a lack of confidence, investment and, ultimately, growth," he insisted.
"The process of reforms (committed in Greece, ed) is the right way to create all the jobs that everyone expects, especially young Greeks," said the French Commissioner for Economic Affairs, the French Pierre Moscovici .
Kyriakos Mitsotakis faces a daunting challenge by succeeding Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras, who was elected in a chaotic Greece in 2015, wracked by the debt crisis and austerity measures imposed by his creditors. EU and the IMF.
Had he raised hope in his election, Tsipras had indeed been forced to accept a bailout with tough measures to prevent the exit of the euro area.
However, the party of Mr. Mitsotakis, New Democracy, believes that this policy stifles growth.
The delicate task of the new Prime Minister will be to maintain creditors' confidence while alleviating the difficulties of the Greeks, which promises to be all the more difficult as the latest international aid plan for Greece, which ended in August 2018, forecasts a primary surplus of 3.5% for 2018 and until 2022.
"The 3.5% is a cornerstone of the aid program," said Klaus Regling, President of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), on Monday, whose mission is to help countries in the region euro in difficulty.
Greece's public debt stood at 335 billion euros ($ 376 billion) last year, or 180 percent of GDP.
? 2019 AFP