Eurozone ministers agree to unlock new bailout money for Greece
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Maltese Finance Minister Edward Scicluna (L) talks with Luxembourg’s Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna (C) and Italian counterpart Pier Carlo Padoan (R) during a Eurogroup meeting at the European Union (EU) headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, May 24, 2016.
Finance ministers from the 19-member monetary club of the European Union have struck a crucial deal with Greece’s cash-strapped government to extend further bailout money to the country.
Early on Wednesday, Eurozone finance ministers emerged from an 11-hour meeting in Brussels, having agreed to give Greece access to a €10.3-billion ($11.48 billion) tranche of bailout funds.
The money would be split into two payments: €7.5 billion ($8.3 billion) to be paid in June and €2.8 billion ($3.12 billion) in September.
The €10.3 billion is part of the long-delayed second installment of Greece’s third bailout loan, which was agreed on last August and is worth €86 billion ($95.9 billion).
“This is an important moment in the long Greek program, an important moment for all of us, since last summer when we had a major crisis of confidence between us,” said Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Eurogroup’s President and Dutch Finance Minister.
“We achieved a major breakthrough on Greece, which enables us to enter a new phase in the Greek financial assistance program,” he said.
Dijsselbloem further said that a package of debt measures would be “phased in progressively.”
More bailout money for Greece had been withheld as Athens was at loggerheads with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — one of its three international lenders — over demands to make extra state savings.
Dijsselbloem said he was “glad to confirm” the IMF was now on board.
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