Brussels, 13/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - The finance ministers of the eurozone are to look at the options presented by the Commission to provide bridge financing so that Greece can honour its reimbursement commitments over the summer, whilst a third bailout plan can be negotiated.
“It will take a few days to find the best ways of proceeding”, the French finance minister, Michel Sapin, warned upon his arrival at the Eurogroup, on Monday afternoon. He said that the heads of state were very clear in the conclusions of the eurozone summit and added that the main thing is to make sure that Greece “can pay off its arrears to the IMF and the Bank of Greece and honour its debt instruments over the next few weeks, in order to create the conditions for the negotiations to succeed”. The eurozone summit calls on the Eurogroup to “discuss these issues as a matter of urgency”.
“We will discuss them, but rest assured that this will not be an easy issue; some member states do not have a mandate to give fresh money or unconditional money”, the Finnish Finance Minister, Alexander Stubb, explained.
The Belgian minister, Johan Van Overtveldt, also pointed out that the agreement of the eurozone summit laid down actions to be taken by Greece immediately and “it will depend upon that what can be done in terms of bridge financing”.
The Maltese minister, Edward Scicluna, also hopes to see things moving forward in Greece on a daily basis, but the question of bridge financing “shouldn't be a problem”, he said.
The Commission turned up with a number of ideas up its sleeve, but seems to favour the use of the European Financial Stability Mechanism (EFSM), which is managed by the Commission on behalf of the EU. This is likely to be a problem for London, which argues that it is no longer possible to use this fund. The Commission believes that it can be reactivated. It also argues that it is the quickest way of helping Greece to honour its upcoming commitments (repayments of arrears of €2 billion to the IMF, €500 million to the Bank of Greece and €4.2 billion to the ECB in July alone). However, the Commission is reported to be the only player keen to go down this road. Another option would be to use the profits of the operation 'SMP'. (Elodie Lamer)