Greece, Creditors Resolve ‘Many’ Issues: Dijsselbloem
Country to receive a first tranche of 13 billion euros in bailout funds in August
Published: 18:48 November 15, 2015
Brussels: Greece and its creditors have agreed on “many” of the issues that had to be resolved for Athens to receive more bailout funds but will hold more talks in the coming days, Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said on Sunday.
Dijsselbloem tweeted “good progress in [the] talks,” adding the two sides had reached “agreement on many issues” ahead of more talks on Tuesday.
The tweet came after talks between Greece and its international lenders in Athens Saturday night, which resumed briefly Sunday morning.
Greece in July accepted a three-year, €86-billion (Dh335.4 billion, $93-billion) EU bailout that saved it from crashing out of the Eurozone, but came with strict conditions.
It received a first tranche of €13 billion in bailout funds in August, and had been expecting the disbursement of another €2 billion euros in October.
But the Eurozone withheld the funds until resolving the remaining sticking points in the bailout programme.
Another €10 billion will be spent on the recapitalisation of the main Greek banks, a process Athens wants to complete before new European rescue rules take effect at the beginning of next year.
Weakened by the imposition of capital controls in June, Greek banks have begun the process of recapitalisation in line with requirements set out by the European Central Bank two weeks ago.
The ECB said the four major Greek banks must find between €4.4 billion and €14.4 billion to survive potential economic shocks.
Eurobank, which is one of the four, this week said institutional investors had committed some €353 million towards planned share offering to raise up to €2.12 billion.
Piraeus Bank said it still had to raise €1.34 billion.
Greece must also introduce new pension cuts to shore up its shaky retirement system.
Officials have hinted that pensions above €1,500 ($1,600) will be slashed.