Euroworking Group meeting today for approval of 2 bln euro loan tranche

The government is under increased pressure to submit two new draft bills to Greek Parliament today if in order to receive the 2-billion-euro tranche of its bailout plan. Its next target is the Eurogroup meeting scheduled to take place on November 9th.
The first refers to bank recapitalization plans and the second one on non-performing (“red”) loans and VAT in private education. The European Commission has already clarified that VAT rates for private education should either be zero or 23%.
The government is trying to find other equivalent measures. Furthermore, there are reservations as to the effectiveness of a VAT hike that could result in students leaving private schools thus causing further pressure to the already heavily burdened state education system.
If the planned VAT hike to private education is dismissed, the government would need to scrape 300 million euros from elsewhere. The governments examines an alternative plan to impose duties for luxury and large cars, as well as duties for hybrid cars and those with anti-pollution equipment that are currently exempt from such taxes.