Reuters
February 19, 2012
Euro zone finance ministers are expected to approve a second rescue package for Greece at a meeting on Monday, a move officials hope will draw a line under four months of social unrest and financial market turmoil that has shaken Athens.
Diplomats and economists do not expect the package to resolve Greece's economic problems: that could take up to a decade or more.
But they hope agreement on Monday will help restructure the country's vast debts, put it on a more stable financial footing and keep it inside the single currency zone.
Senior officials from euro zone finance ministries and the European Central Bank held a conference call on Sunday to go over the final details of the 130-billion-euro program, including a debt sustainability analysis critical to the IMF.
While there is still skepticism in some countries that Greece will be able to live up to its commitments - including implementing 3.3 billion euros of spending cuts and tax increases - officials said momentum was behind approving the deal and that that line was likely to prevail on Monday.
"At the moment it appears it will go exactly this way," Austria's finance minister, Maria Fekter, said on Sunday when asked in a TV interview if the package would be approved.
"I don't think there is a majority to go a different way because a different way is enormously arduous and costs lots and lots of money."
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