Brussels, 13/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 16 February, eurozone finance ministers will try to reach agreement on the follow-up to the Greek bailout that expires at the end of the month.
No sooner had the technical discussions between the Greek authorities and the European Commission, ECB and IMF got underway than the head of Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said on public broadcaster NOS that he was very pessimistic about anything concrete being achieved on Monday. He said the Greeks had great ambitions but that options were limited, given the state of the Greek economy and he didn't know whether anything would be achieved on Monday. The technical discussions are about comparing the current structural adjustment programme with the Greek government's plans to see where they converge and to consider replacements where needed for spurned measures to ensure the same impact on the budget. The president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, warned that Greece and the eurozone were a long way from agreement. A high-ranking European official said that the areas of convergence are likely to be considerable. The German government is prepared to discuss the content of the programme, but a government spokesperson said that the only way possible was to extend it. The European official mentioned another option - a new programme, saying that he didn't rule it out. Nikos Houdis, the deputy Greek European affairs minister, hinted on Greek radio that not everything would be played out on Monday.
Portugal. Eurogroup is expected to give the green light politically to the early repayment by Portugal of some of the loans granted to it by the International Monetary Fund as part of the Portuguese bailout that ended in the summer of 2014 (see EUROPE 11235). A high-ranking European official said that the process respects the same rule as laid down for Ireland, and the politicians were expected to give the go-ahead as long as the country's institutional lenders are involved in the post-bailout surveillance programme. Portugal's borrowing terms on the market are more favourable than those for its loans from the IMF and therefore the country wants to repay €14 billion of the total €26.9 billion loans. This is expected to give Portugal savings in servicing its debt in the order of €130 million.
Other business. The European Commission will present ministers with its Winter Economic Forecasts, which expect each country of the EU to see economic growth of varying degrees in 2015 (see EUROPE 111247). Eurogroup will take note of how the Commission is planning to use the forecasts in its assessment of member states' budget and macroeconomic policies, particularly in three countries (France, Italy and Belgium) for which the Commission will be issuing decisions in early March.
Eurogroup will also look at the analysis of economic and monetary union (EMU) drawn up by the presidents of the European Commission, European Council, Eurogroup and European Central Bank that was submitted to the European Summit. The document draws up a balance sheet of fifteen years of EMU and asks the member states how they can be encouraged to make greater reforms to their economies (see EUROPE 11252). (Elodie Lamer and Mathieu Bion)