Mini summit on Greece provides 
temporary relief
20.03.2015 -
With an agreement that may prove once again to be open to interpretation, Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras, German chancellor Angela Merkel, French president Francois Hollande and the presidents of the European Council, the Commission, the Eurozone and the ECB managed, in the early hours of Friday, to avert the worst during their mini summit in Brussels.
“We have put the procedure back on track, because it was derailed” said the Greek Prime Minister, noting that “We made it clear that Greece is not obliged to implement deflationary measures” while it will “submit it's own reforms and will implement them”.
He also said that the president of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker reaffirmed his commitment to promote European programmes that will alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Greece and will make announcements today.
The other leaders chose to focus on the re-afirmation of Greece's obligations, choosing subtly different ways to express them. “No money without review”, said Angela Merkel while Francois Hollande said that “money will come after evaluation”.
In a brief press conference after the meeting, Angela Merkel said that t he government will have full responsibility of the reforms and during the next days it will send a list of specific reforms. According to information, Greece has a week to prepare a list of reforms and the issue will be discussed in a special Eurogroup meeting next week.
In a brief statement issued after the meeting, the presidents of the Council, Donald Tusk, the Commission, Jean Claude Juncker and the Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem note that:
“We fully adhere to the agreement of the Eurogroup of 20 February 2015.
In the spirit of mutual trust, we are all committed to speed up the work and conclude it as fast as possible.
Within the framework of the Eurogroup agreement of 20 February 2015, the Greek authorities will have the ownership of the reforms and will present a full list of specific reforms in the next days.
We reconfirmed the practical agreement on the process: The policy talks take place in Brussels. The fact-finding missions take place in Athens.
The Eurogroup stands ready to reconvene as soon as possible.”
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