The decision adopted by the Eurogroup on 20 February 2015 was followed a few days later by a text amending/extending the main financial assistance agreement between the EFSF and the Hellenic Republic signed by the Greek Minister for Finance Mr Varoufakis.

That text was signed by the Minister for Finance without authorisation from the Hellenic Parliament.

Furthermore, once it was signed, the Hellenic Parliament and Greek MEPs did not receive formal notification of its contents.

Moreover, the amendment also makes provision for EUR 11 billion to be returned from the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF), of which the Greek Government is now seeking the return of EUR 1.2 billion.

In view of the above, will the Council answer the following:

Will it submit the full official text of the above amendment/addendum in English and Greek, together with all its annexes?

Does this text refer to the initial agreement and expressly refer to the Memorandum and the Troika’s assessment and to the overall legal status of the initial agreement?

What does it expect to happen in connection with the Greek Government’s request concerning the return of EUR 1.2 billion to the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund?

Reply

The information requested by the Honourable Member is not available to the Council, as it is not involved in the interactions between the institutions and Greece or in the review of their reports and assessments.

The Honourable Member may wish to refer to the response provided by the Eurogroup President to the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee's request for input into a European Parliament own-initiative report evaluating the role and operations of the Commission, the European Parliament and the European Central Bank in euro area programme countries in January 2014. This response clearly sets out the role of the Commission and European Central Bank in providing the Council with information and analysis on programme countries. The response was published by the European Parliament on the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee's website.

With regard to the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF), the Honourable Member may wish to refer to the 20 February 2015 decision by the Eurogroup stating that the funds, so far available in the HFSF buffer, should be held by the European Financial Stability Facility. The funds can only be used for bank recapitalisation and resolution costs. They would only be released on request by the European Central Bank/Single Supervisory Mechanism.