ATHENS – Greece and its lenders reached a staff-level agreement on the country’s third program review on Saturday, Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said after a meeting with the country’s lenders.

“We achieved the agreement with the institutions on a staff-level on all issues,” he told journalists. “We won enough things and we are happy,” he said, citing as an example the agreement to give employees super priority in case of bankruptcy. He said they will be first in the list of creditors, above the banks and the State.

Asked about whether the VAT on the islands will remain unchanged, the minister said this issue “has not exactly been agreed on with the institutions” and remains pending. He said the issue will be clarified long before January 1, 2018 when the special tax regime will be abolished.

The European institutions (European Commission, European Central Bank and the European Stability Mechanism) announced in a joint statement on Saturday the achievement of a staff-level agreement with Greece on the third program review, saying Greek authorities have to implement the prior actions to conclude it.

“The European institutions have reached a staff-level agreement with the Greek authorities on the policy package supporting the ESM program. This will be presented to the Eurogroup next Monday 4 December 2017. The Greek authorities plan to implement the prior actions necessary to conclude the 3rd review as soon as possible,” they said in a statement.