EP Political group leaders express themselves on the discussion on the request by Alexis TSIPRAS, Greek Prime Minister, that the EP join the &ldquo;quartet&rdquo; of creditor institutions overseeing Greece bailout. Statements by Giovanni PITTELLA (S&amp;D, IT), Guy VERHOFSTADT (ALDE, BE), Gabriele ZIMMER (GUE/NGL, DE) and Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE)

Brussels

EU - Greece (T)

VERHOFSTADT, Guy (Renew, BE)

statement

PITTELLA, Gianni (S&D, IT)

LAMBERTS, Philippe (Greens/EFA, BE)

economic situation in Greece (T)

ZIMMER, Gabriele (GUE/NGL, DE)

Discussion on the request by Alexis TSIPRAS, Greek Prime Minister, that the EP join the “quartet” of creditor institutions overseeing Greece bailout: statements by EP Political group leaders

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Giovanni PITTELLA (S&amp;D, IT), Group leader, Statement in Italian

SOUNDBITE (English), Guy VERHOFSTADT (ALDE, BE), Group leader, We have asked from the begining that there should be a scrutiny by the European Parliament of the implementation of the programme for Greece, and that has been in principle accepted. We have now to find the practical conditions of that, and that means that the Parliament, a few times a year, shall invite the creditor countries and Greece, the minister of Finance, to see that they are implementing the reforms that have been agreed. I think that the pressure to do that publicly, so that everybody can follow it, like there was a public debate with Mr Tsipras, there should be in the future public debates on the implementation of the programme of Greece, not only for Greece, we can do that later on also for other countries.

SOUNDBITE (German), Gabriele ZIMMER (GUE/NGL, DE), Group leader, Statement in German

SOUNDBITE (French), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Group leader, We support the idea that in the context of the macro-financial assistance programmes, there needs to be a democratic surveillance of what goes on. Today, the democratic legitimacy of that programme is weak, to us it is almost unexistent, so for us, it needs to be put in place. We had already moved in that direction in one of the two texts of the two-pack, and the troika report by the European Parliament, it is time to put all that into force. Schulz will discuss with Juncker to see how we can put that in practice, but the idea is completely justified, so we support it.