EUROZONE-GREECE/EUROGROUP ARRIVALS Eurogroup to examine bridge financing for Greece after bailout agreement

Record ID: 147429

  • Title: EUROZONE-GREECE/EUROGROUP ARRIVALS Eurogroup to examine bridge financing for Greece after bailout agreement
  • Date: 13th July 2015
  • Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (JULY 13, 2015) (REUTERS) DIJSSELBLOEM ENTERING COUNCIL FRENCH FINANCE MINISTER, MICHEL SAPIN, ARRIVING AND WALKING OVER TO JOURNALISTS SAPIN FACING JOURNALISTS
  • Embargoed: 28th July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belgium
  • Country: Belgium
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA830DWTNU7EK8YL8G3SM4894UW
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Eurozone finance ministers met on Monday (July 13) to discuss how to keep Greece financed during the time it will need to agree a third bailout, but none of the options under consideration appear easy, officials said.
    Leaders from across the 19-nation single currency made Greece surrender much of its sovereignty to outside supervision during a summit on Monday in return for agreeing to talks on an 86 billion euros bailout to keep the near-bankrupt country in the single currency.
    Eurogroup Chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem said the ministers would not be looking into the technical details of a deal with Greece.
    "No, we will only be looking at the possibility of bridge financing as we agreed to discuss," he told reporters as he arrived for the euro group meeting in Brussels.
    The terms imposed on Greece by international lenders led by Germany in all-night talks at an emergency summit obliged leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to abandon promises of ending austerity and could fracture his government and cause an outcry in the country.
    French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said Tsipras and his government had been courageous.
    "I pay tribute to the courage, especially the political courage, of a government which faced up to the difficulties, including the legitimate political debate and serious and difficult political debates to put in place, finally, solid reforms which will allow Greece to get out of the situation it finds itself in," he said.
    Greece hopes to start talks on a bailout of up to 86 billion euros at the end of the week after its parliament passes a raft of laws by Wednesday (July 15) to show it is ready to reform.
    But the bailout talks are likely to be tough and probably take many weeks, if not months.
    "There seem to be a lot of people who have jumped the gun here and thought that the beginning of the negotiations is automatic," Finnish Finance Minister Alexander Stubb told reporters, before adding: "No. It is absolutely conditional on the decision by the Greek government and the Greek parliament. The big issue for today is going to be bridge financing and I foresee those negotiations being very difficult because I don't see many countries having a mandate to give money without any conditions."
    If Monday's summit on Greece's third bailout had failed, Athens would have been staring into an economic abyss with its banks on the brink of collapse and the prospect of having to print a parallel currency and exit the euro.
    Maltese Finance Minister Edward Scicluna said Grexit had no longer been a taboo during discussions.
    "Considering that we reached that point now we've retracted back from the very end of the cliff," he said.
    EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici hailed maintaining the integrity of the eurozone as an important moment.
    "We have to make a success of these negotiations which are ready to begin," he said.
    Greece won conditional agreement at Monday's summit to receive a possible 86 billion euros (95 billion U.S. dollars) over three years.
    Athens must meet a tight timetable for enacting unpopular reforms of value added tax, pensions, budget cuts, bankruptcy rules and an EU banking law that could be used to make big depositors take losses.
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