Less than 24 hours after Greece secured a further 8 billion euros in loans from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund, Prime Minister Lucas Papademos issued a stern warning to his Cabinet Wednesday amid concern that bickering between ministers is holding up the implementation of reforms. Papademos had the meeting in the wake of eurozone finance ministers deciding in Brussels on Tuesday to release the sixth instalment for Greece, which needed the money by mid-December so it could continue paying its bills.
The eurozone finance ministers met in Brussels and agreed to release the 5.8 billion euros that their countries are providing to the 8-billion-euro tranche. “We have the necessary political consensus, we have the necessary national unity and the national commitment and determination to go ahead,” Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said ahead of the meeting.
The ministers also discussed increasing the firepower of the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) as the eurozone’s debt crisis spreads, forcing Italy to offer a record yield of 7.89 per cent to sell three-year bonds — more than Greece, Ireland and Portugal when they applied for EU-IMF bailouts.
Discussions focused on how to get the IMF and the European Central Bank involved in the rescue fund, possibly through the ECB making loans to the Washington-based fund so it could provide troubled countries with loans.
Source: Kathimerini