Saturday 20 August marked the formal end of Greece’s “enhanced surveillance” by European Union creditors, meaning they will no longer conduct quarterly checks of the country’s finances to approve debt relief payments.
The European Commission announced the development earlier in the week on the basis that “Greece has delivered on the bulk of the policy commitments” made to Eurozone partners.
But the country, like other bailed-out EU members, will still be monitored, until the last loans’ repayment which is not expected to take place for another two generations.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis praised the official exit from the budget watch as a “historic day for Greece and for all Greeks” which he said signalled a new horizon of “development, unity and prosperity for all.”
Mitsotakis referred to hardships endured by the Greek people due to heavy taxation and cuts in wages and pensions, as well as a number of societal “wounds” including “fanaticism, fires, violence”, the “blind undermining of institutions,” and “the poison of Golden Dawn.”
He also blamed “policy mishandlings that prevented a swifter exit from our international partners’ surveillance.”
“Four years of demagogy followed, which cost our nation €100 billion and pushed the country to the precipice,” Mr Mitsotakis said of the time main opposition party SYRIZA was in power between 2015 and 2019.
In response, SYRIZA spokesman Nassos Iliopoulos said Mitsotakis was celebrating “something that had been decided a year before he was elected”, citing indicators, including “37 billion euros in public coffers”, “12 straight quarters of growth”, and a drop of unemployment by 10% when SYRIZA left power in 2019.
In a statement, Iliopoulos claimed Mitsotakis had been “representing the forces that led to Greece’s bankruptcy” and supported “the most extreme of lenders who called for the Greek people’s exemplary punishment.”
On the occasion, of the end of the ‘enhanced surveillance’ program, both the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel tweeted congratulatory messages for the Greek people on their efforts:
“Thanks to the determination and resilience of Greece and its people, the country can close this chapter, and look to the future with confidence. The EU will always stand by your side,” said von der Leyen.