EU: Greek reforms proposal valid starting point for bailout review

The European Commission Tuesday said it has carefully reviewed the Greek government's reform proposals sent yesterday.
"In the view of the Commission, this list is sufficiently comprehensive to be a valid starting point for a successful conclusion of the review as called for by the Eurogroup at its last meeting," said European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis and EU Commissioner for economic affairs Pierre Moscovici in their letter sent to President of the Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem.
"We are encouraged by the commitment to combat tax evasion and corruption, inter alia through efforts to modernise tax and custom administrations, as well as to pursue reforms to modernise the public administration," it noted.
"Further specification of the reforms in these and other key areas is expected to be provided and agreed before the end of April, in line with last week's Eurogroup statement. The Commission looks forward to working with the new administration to elaborate what are at the moment still general commitments and transform these into clear policy actions," it said.
The letter called on Greece to fully respect its commitment undertaken at the Eurogroup of 20 February and to refrain from any roll back of measures and unilateral changes to the policies and structural reforms.
Meanwhile, the state of play in Eurogroup talks with Greece dominated the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee's debate with Dijsselbloem here today.
He confirmed that the Greek reform plan had been received on Monday evening and that Eurogroup financed ministers would discuss it in a video conference call later on Tuesday.