Troika meets with Greek ministers

The first meeting was with Labour Minister Yiannis Vroutsis. Meetings with Health Minister Makis Voridis and Development Minister Nikos Dendias will follow.

IMF's representative Poul Thomsen will also participate in today's meetings. The heads of the troika will complete their visit to Athens next Thursday

Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis met with the troika on Thursday during which he expressed strong displeasure over media reports on supposed government intentions to negotiate with the troika tax relief measures. It was Hardouvelis' first official encounter with the troika, in a meeting which lasted two hours.

The troika representatives focused their discussions with Hardouvelis on no less than 15 separate issues, including the extraordinary "solidarity contribution" tax and the rumored government intentions to reduce or even abolish it. Moreover, Thursday's deliberations with the troika devoted considerable time to two issues, in particular the fiscal gaps created by some latest court decisions on "special public payrolls" - concerning uniformed personnel, judges and others - as well as the delays in acting on bailout memorandum commitments, which has led to a low compliance rate of just 20 pct, in part explained by European elections.

According to Finance ministry officials, "there is a very large package of about 600 actions [memorandum commitments] for the April-June period, without taking into account July and August". The Greek side on Thursday attempted to reassure the troika that the government has a plan to speed up the fulfilment of memorandum commitments while rebuilding the country's credibility.

The troika appeared satisfied with the "small PPC" developments, after the relevant bill was finally approved by Parliament on Wednesday.

At the labor ministry the troika met with minister Vroutsis and his aides and discussed the overhaul of the social security system and the tactics being employed with the unification of funds.

According to a high ranking ministry official, today's meeting was exploratory, and thus not substantive.