WROCLAW, Poland (MNI) – European Union leaders expressed hope on
Friday that an E8 billion tranche of official aid for Greece can be
disbursed by mid-October, but warned that conditions to approve the
funds have not yet been met.
Following a morning meeting of finance ministers and central
bankers from the 17 countries that use the euro, officials said they had
not yet solved the issue of whether Finland will get collateral for its
part of the Greek bailout and insisted that Greece meet all targets for
fiscal and structural reform.
The Finnish collateral issue remains “a work in progress,” said
Olli Rehn, European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs. And
Rehn said the next tranche of Greek bailout funds would be disbursed by
mid-October only “on the condition that Greece will meet all the
conditions.”
The meeting of Eurozone finance ministers here is the first since
the July 21 summit in Brussels in which EU leaders agreed to give a
second bailout to Greece and to expand the scope of Europe’s bailout
fund, the European Financial Stability Facility.
It comes after a month of escalating market tensions amid a sharp
slowdown in European growth, the dispute with Finland over collateral
and uncertainty over how quickly national parliaments would approve the
changes in the EFSF.
–Paris newsroom +331 4271 5540; jduffy@marketnews.com
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