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Greek PM says first bailout review must be concluded within November

Tsipras# speech concluded a three-day debate on his policy platform, which was to be immediately followed by a confidence vote.

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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told lawmakers early on Thursday that Athens must conclude the first review of its new global bailout within November, to start talks over a debt relief before the end of the year.

As the governing coalition controls 155 of Parliament’s 300 seats, it is expected to easily win the vote.

The worldwide Monetary Fund reiterated the creditors’ gloomier forecasts in its half-yearly World Economic Outlook unveiled on Tuesday, based on data collected up to August 12, just before Greece’s third bailout was clinched. “Our main concern will be to support the weakest”.

The government now has until October 15 to pass the first set of 48 reforms ahead of a creditor review, which Tsipras hopes will then open up the possibility to discuss debt restructuring and bank recapitalization.

“This should help, as Prime Minister [of Greece Alexis] Tsipras put it, to roll out hotspots in Greece which we expect will become operational within the next one to two weeks”, Andreeva said at a press conference.

With a brief exception previous year, Greece has been unable to borrow from markets since it lost investor confidence in 2010 after under-reporting its budget deficit.

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The country has instead had to rely on repeated bailouts pegged to the implementation of austerity measures to avoid bankruptcy and an exit from the eurozone. Tsipras was initially elected in January on pledges to drastically curb the resented austerity, but was forced to accept the new bailout – on condition of further belt-tightening – to keep the country in the eurozone.

A Syrian refugee boy sleeps on a roadside amid donated clothes and shoes after he and his family arrived on a dinghy from the Turkish coast to the northeastern Greek island of Lesbos Monday Oct. 5, 2015