At an extraordinary meeting on February 11 the Eurogroup discussed the situation in Greece, in particular the way forward considering the upcoming expiry of Greece’s current economic adjustment program.
Greece’s lender’s want the country to continue on the path of austerity and extend the memorandum signed by the previous government in exchange for loans. The new Greek government, and Greece’s new Finance Minister Yiannis Varoufakis wants to restructure Greece’s huge debt suggesting new reforms, but not austerity measures.
The newly appointed Greek Minister for Finance, Yanis Varoufakis, outlined his government’s positions to the other EU finance chiefs, although no decisions were made for Greece’s future.
Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem made the following statement at a press conference after Wednesday’s Eurogroup meeting:
Good evening.
Today, as you well know, we had an extra Eurogroup to start our talks with the new Greek colleague, to already cover some ground in advance of the regular Eurogroup, which is on Monday.
It was the first opportunity to meet and to listen to the new Greek colleague on their plans, ambitions of their government. And that was very welcome and useful. We had an intense discussion and constructive, covering a lot of ground, also making progress, but not enough progress at this point to come to joint conclusions. So, we will continue our talks on Monday.
On Monday, we have a regular Eurogroup, with a number of items on the agenda, but we will also continue our talks on Greece and our current and future cooperation with Greece. That is where we stand. So, there are no real conclusions, which I can share with you. You will have to bear with us a little longer. We will continue our talks on Monday. And that is as far I can go, at this point. I am open to all your questions, but I am already going to say to you to be patient and I will probably repeat that five times to your questions. But I will try anyway.
Although Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said to the Greek parliament on Monday that the memorandum and the troika eras are long gone for Greece, Germany believes the country needs to extend its bailout program and agree on new austerity measures.
The discussion will continue at the next Eurogroup meeting on Monday, February 16, 2015.
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