Venizelos Waits for Eurogroup Decision on New Bailout

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said that he anticipates to see a long period of uncertainty coming to a close today as the Eurogroup meets to discuss a new 130-billion euro bailout for the debt-strapped country.

“Greece comes into today’s Eurogroup meeting having fulfilled all the requirements for the approval of the new program -a basic parameter of which is the PSI- within the context of the European Council decision of October 26/27, 2011," said Venizelos.

In all matters, including the agreement with the private sector, Greece has remained faithful to the decisions and directives of the Eurozone bodies, he said.

"Therefore, it is obvious that we anticipate to see a long period of uncertainty coming to a close today, a period that benefited neither the Greek economy, nor the Euro Area overall," said the finance minister.

Negotiations are still underway in Brussels, technical problems are being discussed, individual parameters are being examined and preferences or priorities of institutional partners or member-states are affecting the mood of the talks, he said.

On February 9th, Greek political leaders reached a deal on a new economic austerity programme negotiated with Greece's creditors the IMF, the European Commission and the ECB. The new deal is expected to include private sector involvement (PSI) which is needed to cut Greece's 200 billion-euro debt by 50%.

Cyprus banks have suffered significant losses on their exposure to Greece's national bond market, and most analysts expect the situation to get worse before it gets better.

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