EU works into night on Greece bailout

Finance ministers express optimism that a deal can be reached.

BRUSSELS — Eurozone governments worked into the night Monday, hoping to agree on a long-awaited rescue package for Greece that would save it from a potentially calamitous bankruptcy next month, but several key points of division remained, senior officials said.

Finance ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday were still wrangling over how to reduce Greece’s debt load further and impose even tighter control over the country’s spending, and negotiations were expected to stretch late into the night. Rich countries and the International Monetary Fund want to be sure Athens can survive eventually without aid.

But after months of delays, time for Greece is running out. The country needs to secure the $170 billion bailout so it can move ahead with a related $130 billion debt relief deal with private investors. That deal needs to be in place quickly if Athens is to avoid a disorderly default on a bond repayment March 20.

“I am of the opinion that today we have to deliver, because we don’t have any more time,” said Jean-claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg who also chairs the meetings of eurozone finance ministers.

An uncontrolled bankruptcy likely would force Greece to leave the 17-country currency union and return to its old currency, the drachma, further shaking its already beaten economy and creating uncertainty across Europe.

Heading into the meeting Monday, ministers were optimistic.

“We now have all of the elements to achieve an agreement,” said French Finance Minister Francois Baroin. “Greece knows what it has to do, and we’ll watch over it continually. We also know what we have to do.”

But the finance ministers were also negotiating on several fronts, trying to move Greece’s other creditors to increase their commitments. The goal is to bring Greece’s debt down to about 120 percent of gross domestic product by 2020 — the maximum the IMF sees as sustainable. The country’s debt load now stands at more than 160 percent.

Last week, a new report prepared by the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF concluded that the new bailout, Greek spending cuts, and a planned (euro) 100 billion debt relief from private investors would still leave Greece’s debt at almost 129 percent of economic output by the end of the decade.

Ministers were exploring several options to close that gap Monday.