Greece short of liquidity: new measures in view

Greece has again liquidity problems and in the absence of an agreement with creditors to unblock a new tranche of aid – as the newspaper "Kathimerini" – money in the state coffers could end up in mid-May. The Tsipras government started from January to limit the outputs: in the first quarter of the public primary expenses were $ 1.34 billion less than the budget planned 10.5 billion. Despite having regularly paid pensions and salaries, the government was forced to save on other items of expenditure, including payments to health facilities.

However, last April 21, the Ministry of Health has sent a letter to the hospitals in which he asks to move all their liquid assets into a special account of the Central Bank. It 'the same strategy used last year between May and June, when – with the negotiations with creditors stalled and the country to the brink of default – Athens has forced all state actually to turn the money in cash to an account central, then used as collateral to raise new very short-term funds on the bond market and to prop up the government machinery.

In the meantime, EU and FMI asked Athens a series of protective measures to be 3 billion in 2018 to trigger automatically if the austerity being studied at this time, more than three billion in new taxes and savings on pensions, will not allow to arrive for that date to a primary surplus of 3,5% of GDP.