Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
FINANCE MINISTERS FROM across the eurozone are in Brussels today to discuss whether to release the next tranche of rescue funds to embattled Greece.
A last-minute agreement between the Troika and Athens needs to be reached before the €6.3 billion is granted. Over the past month, officials have been assessing progess in the Greek bailout programme but there are still steps to be undertaken before the Troika is satisfied.
It is understood that Greece’s Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras will leave for Belgium this afternoon with representatives from the IMF, the European Union and the European Central Bank and that talks will continue on the plane.
As part of the deal, Greece will be expected to cut a further 4,000 public sector jobs, while redeploying 25,000 others. Those changes will need to be put into law at parliament tomorrow, once an agreement is finalised.
Since 2010, a total of €240 billion has been pumped into Greece.
Meanwhile, back in Brussels, there will be considerable interest in the Portuguese delegate Maria Luís Albuquerque as it his her first time attending as Portugal’s finance minister. She was appointed to much controversy – and almost to the detriment of the entire political system – last week by Prime Minister Passos Coelho.
-Additional reporting by AFP
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
God help those Greeks, once they sort out their deficit & balance their budget they should walk out of the euro and that bailout money.
And we should get the fcuk out too. Or at least charge them €200 billion to keep us in.
Ye Tony once we sort out our deficit then maybe revert to a currency we can weigh against Sterling or the Dollar. Although we’d have to remain in the EU at all costs.
What kind if evil skum have these euro ministers become? Stringing Greece along.
Either we are all europeans or we are not. We help each other or we disband the union, simple as.
Just give Greece the money ye shower of fcuking bstards.
Thats the problem. The Greeks were helping themselves too much and not paying taxes. Was only a matter of time before the bubble burst.
It’s a non decision , much like the Anglo tapes they have to grant them more to protect their investment. Debt to pay debt
I still don’t see the logic in sacking 4000 public servants! That’s 4000 more people not paying taxes and becoming dependent on the state, 4000 more people not spending on goods and services. This is just blatant opportunism, a chance to wipe out the public sector and open it up to privatisation in a further ideological drive to implement even more disastrous neo liberal policies, which is the equivalent to trying to put out a house fire with gasoline!
Their wages cost more to the state than paying those numbers welfare.
Read somewhere that public servants are on around €60,000 average salary a year, 3 times the private sector average. A lot of professions can retire at 50 earning most of their last wage as their pension. Country is an absolute mess.
A bunch of wasters the lot of them playing around with one another’s Countries they have no respect for their people’s only their own pockets
It’s a disgrace how the Greeks have been treated. After all this time and proof that austerity does not work they will only hand more money so long as they continue on this failed broken road. Retired architects, teachers , lots all begging for food now.
of course they are going to get the bail out money….foregone concusion…
Its the same as on the micro level, once an eligibility for welfare bale out is established the supports multiply to in in excess of middle class cash earnings. Stopping Nation and individual instances of dependence is the real answer.
A grotesque comment if ever there was one.
How is €186 in excess of middle class earnings?
have your say