EUROZONE-GREECE/MERKEL UPDATE Merkel - "No reason to doubt timetable for Greek legislation"

Record ID: 147308

  • Title: EUROZONE-GREECE/MERKEL UPDATE Merkel - "No reason to doubt timetable for Greek legislation"
  • Date: 13th July 2015
  • Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (JULY 13, 2015) (REUTERS) MERKEL AT PRESS CONFERENCE
  • Embargoed: 28th July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belgium
  • Country: Belgium
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA4664HJI7CX7UX6MBBM2QND2MK
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday (July 13) that she had "no reason to doubt" the timetable for the Greek legislation on a third bailout programme.
    "The situation in Greece is very tense. There is a certain interest in progress (of the talks about ending the crisis)," she told journalists in Brussels.
    "The four conditions that we mentioned here are already well prepared. I assume - in the spirit of building trust - that it will work."
    Merkel added it would be "a long and difficult road."
    After an all-night negotiation pitting her against leftist Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, the conservative chancellor said Greece had made conditions worse for itself through the sharp deterioration of its economy in the last six months, and the closure of its banks for the last two weeks.
    Merkel said that the deal will only be taken to the German parliament after the Greek parliament has approved the conditions the Eurogroup set for Greece's bailout programme and the three institutions as well as the Eurogroup have given their thumbs up.
    Tsipras won conditional agreement to receive a possible 86 billion euros ($95.29 billion) over three years, along with an assurance that eurozone finance ministers would start within hours discussing ways to bridge a funding gap for Greece until a bailout - subject to parliamentary approvals - is finally ready.
    Of that, Merkel said that a privatisation fund will be created worth about 50 billion euros which will include the privatisation of the recapitalised banks.
    "The Eurogroup is ready if necessary to grant longer grace period and longer loan maturities - we talked about it - after the first successful review of the new Greek programme," she said.
    Merkel also acknowledged that Germany had dropped a demand that the agreed summit document state explicitly that Greece should have to take a "time out" from the eurozone if it did not meet the conditions for the bailout.
    But the precondition of the agreement, she said, was the restatement of the supervision by the three institutions: "We pointed out that the three institutions will resume their normal supervision of bailout programme," Merkel added, "meaning that their presence in Greece is possible, as it was in other countries of the programme. Because that was rather difficult this time."
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