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Greece reaches austerity package agreement
Greek ministers have reached an agreement over a €3bn (£2.5bn) austerity package with hours to spare.
The agreement means Greece’s finance minister Evangelos Venizelos can now attend a meeting this evening in Brussels with other eurozone finance ministers in order to approve the latest €130bn bailout tranche for the stricken economy.
Greek ministers had struggled to reach an agreement over a €325m budget cut to come from public pensions, which met with fierce opposition from some quarters.
The deadline for agreeing the cuts had been pushed back four times during the course of the week to allow more time to negotiate the cuts.
The focus of negotiations will now shift to the private-sector holders of Greek debt, who are being asked to take a 50 per cent haircut on their holdings to help wipe €100bn from Greece’s national debt. An agreement must be reached by March 20 when the next round of Greek debt matures.
More to follow.
