Doubts over Greek bail-out

Concern over whether Greek authorities have done enough to satisfy finance ministers.

Greece’s €130 billion international bail-out may not be signed off by eurozone finance ministers tomorrow after all, with the European Commission acknowledging that Greece still has not met all of the conditions to secure the loan.

A meeting in Brussels has been pencilled in for tomorrow evening, following talks today by the Euro Working Group – senior officials from national finance ministries – but there are now doubts over whether Greek authorities have done enough to satisfy the rest of the eurozone.

A spokeswoman for Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, said: “We are hoping that significant progress can be made [at the Eurogroup tomorrow evening], but there are a number of conditions still to be met which will be discussed tomorrow.”

It was thought that Greece had done enough to qualify for the bail-out after all main political parties agreed to remain committed to the austerity measures – a condition of the emergency funding – after April’s general election.

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The parties agreed further cuts, demanded by eurozone finance ministers, of €325 million, and the austerity measures were approved by Greece’s parliament on Sunday evening.

It was expected that the eurozone’s 17 finance ministers would approve the deal this week, enabling a disbursement of the first slice of the eurozone/International Monetary Fund loan, which Greece needs by 20 March to avoid bankruptcy.

However, the approval was thrown into doubt when Antonis Samaras, the leader of the New Democracy party and favourite to become next prime minister, indicated that he may wish to renegotiate the austerity programme if elected.

It is thought that eurozone officials and finance ministers want Greece to clarify how the cuts will be made and to give a cast-iron guarantee that they will be adhered to.