Troika renamed “Brussels Group” arrive in Athens on Thursday

The representatives from the EU, ECB and IMF (or Troika which is now baptized as the Brussels Group) would arrive in Athens on Thursday, in order to collect macroeconomic and financial data, as confirmed at the first meeting in Brussels.

The Troika (oops... Brussels Group) would also discuss technical matters in the reform policies agreed at the recent Eurogroup meeting as well as task teams with collecting the necessary information from Athens. These technical teams are not going to ministries or other government agencies, as the same representatives had once done (or so the government claims).

The head of the Greek negotiating team will be the general secretary at the Ministry of Finances Nikos Theoharakis, with Finance Minister Varoufakis’ consultant Elena Panariti at his side. The Brussels Group’s main representatives are going to be comprised of the former troika’s Declan Costello (EU), Klaus Masuch (ECB) and Rishi Goyal (IMF) – (Masuch could be replaced by Rasmus Ruffer). Reports in Athens claim that the negotiations will continue based on the agreement of February 20th.

Editor's Note: This whole baptismal word play is actually quite entertaining. SYRIZA and ANEL are certainly talented in public relations. What is even more entertaining is their fanatic supporters who insist that the "Brussels Group" is not the Troika... or that the "Memorandums" are just agreements. Of course they are... (wink wink...) they are only "Memorandums" when the conservatives are in power, but when the Leftists are in power they are agreements... Aspirin please!