Greece, creditors resolve ‘many’ issues: Dijsselbloem

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 yesterday. 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 threeyear, 86-billion-euro ($93-billion) EU bailout that saved it from crashing out of the euro-zone, but came with strict conditions. It received a first tranche of 13 billion euros in bailout funds in August, and had been expecting the disbursement of another two billion euros in October.

But the euro-zone withheld the funds until resolving the remaining sticking points in the bailout program. Another 10 billion will be spent on the recapitalization 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 recapitalization 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 and 14.4 billion euros to survive potential economic shocks. Eurobank, which is one of the four, this week said institutional investors had committed some 353 million euros towards planned share offering to raise up to 2.12 billion euros. Piraeus Bank said it still had to raise 1.34 billion euros. Greece must also introduce new pension cuts to shore up its shaky retirement system. Officials have hinted that pensions above 1,500 euros ($1,600) will be slashed. — AFP