EU's Juncker backs changing Greek debt monitoring system

EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker backs a change to the "troika" mission, the much-loathed team tasked with enforcing Greece's international bailout, his spokesman said Monday.
The new leftist government led by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has demanded an end to the oversight system, which groups the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank, and is widely loathed by austerity-hit Greeks.
Tsipras is due to meet Juncker on Wednesday as part of a European tour aimed at drumming up support for his demands to restructure Greece's debt and for binning the system of overseeing Greece's painful reforms.
Germany's Handelsblatt newspaper reported on Monday, without naming any sources, that Juncker wanted to end the troika system that was put into place after Greece's first bailout in 2010 and find an alternative.
Asked about the reports, Juncker's spokesman Margaritis Schinas told a daily media briefing that he could only "reiterate" what the Commission chief had already said when he was first elected in July.
He quoted Juncker as saying: "We should be able to replace the troika with a more democratically legitimate and more accountable structure based around European institutions."
But Schinas added: "We have not envisioned any new structure, we do not have a new formula."
"I will not go into further speculation before a global understanding is reached," he added.
Schinas warned that any decision to overhaul the troika inspectors or any other issue concerning the bailout of Greece, would have to win the unanimous approval of all eurozone member states.
"Everything has to be agreed at this stage by all 19 members of the eurozone," he said.
Despite a restructuring in 2012, Greece is still grappling with a debt pile of more than 315 billion euros ($355 billion), which represents around 175 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), a record for the EU.
Created in May 2010, the troika mission pooled resources from the EU, IMF and ECB to build and enforce the bailout, which has grown to a commitment of 240 billion euros ($271 billion), to help Greece sustain its debts and avoid an exit from the eurozone.
The IMF already called into question the effectiveness of the troika's mission to Athens in a June 2013 report in which it said there was "no clear division of labor" and the European partners lacked the experience and ability to manage large aid programmes.
Source: AFP