Eurozone should decide bailout on Friday: Sapin

If the bailout is not approved by the Eurogroup, it could decide to grant Greece 6.04 billion euros in bridge financing, according to German newspaper Bild, citing a European Commission proposal for the meeting.

Ten billion euros will be made available to recapitalize Greece banks, while a second slice of 16 billion euros will be paid in several installments, the wire service said.

“The past six months have been hard… today, I am glad to say that all sides have respected their commitments”, the statement cited EC President Jean-Claude Juncker as saying.

“Of course there were differences but we have managed to solve the last issues”, Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem told reporters in Brussels.

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The fund, worth up to 50 billion euros, is supported to be established in Greece under the supervision of the relevant European institutions by the end of this year.

That clears the way for Eurozone finance ministers to approve the first batch of aid from the 85-billion-euro package later on Friday, though deep doubts remain in major creditor Germany about whether Athens will fulfill its pledges.

The bailout package passed the Greek parliament by a comfortable margin, but many lawmakers from Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ leftist Syriza party voted against the deal.

Hopes that European lenders will back International Monetary Fund demands for debt relief including longer repayment deadlines as the only way to help Greece firmly back on its feet were dampened after French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said eurozone talks on such a compromise would not take place before October. “We no longer have a democracy… but a eurozone dictatorship”, prominent party member Panagiotis Lafazanis said ahead of the vote.

At Friday’s meeting, finance ministers from Germany and some other eurozone countries may question whether the bailout program would keep enough pressure on Greece to overhaul its economy.

About one-third of legislators from the Syriza party, which was elected earlier this year on an anti-austerity platform, voted against the measure or abstained.

Lagarde said that Athens needs “well beyond what has been considered so far” and that the country “cannot restore debt sustainability exclusively through actions on its own”.

Since then far-left rebels have openly revolted at votes on bailout reforms and the combative parliamentary speaker Zoe Konstantopoulou has regularly delayed proceedings – most recently on Thursday, leaving infuriated lawmakers debating all night on procedures before a vote was held after daybreak.

Even before the vote revealed the depth of anger against the austerity measures, Syriza was edging towards a split.