Greek bailout tranche delayed as Athens fails to deliver

Eurozone finance ministers urged Greece on Monday to deliver on overdue reforms within a week in order to secure crucial funds from its bailout, as tensions resurfaced just months after Athens narrowly avoided a euro exit.

The two sides need to resolve several issues, including how to deal with housing foreclosures, said the official, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.

Dutch Finance Minister and chair of the eurogroup finance ministers Jeroen Dijsselbloem talks with journalists as he arrives for a meeting of eurogroup finance ministers at the EU Council building in Brussels on Monday, November 9, 2015. If Greece is in agreement with the terms, an additional 2 billion euros will be released to Athens. “We hope that this can happen in the course of this week”.

Once the promised reforms have been passed and the bank recapitalization has taken place, discussions between Greece and its creditors can move on to how to lighten Greece’s public debt load, which after the anticipated recession will see it rise to around 190 percent of the country’s annual gross domestic product.

“It is exclusively for Greece to implement what we agreed upon last July”.

While implementation has been lagging, hampered in part by snap elections held in September, European Union economic affairs commissioner Pierre Moscovici remained positive after Monday´s meeting that “an agreement can be reached in the coming days”.

The Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, broached the issue Sunday afternoon in telephone calls with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President Francois Hollande of France and the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker.

Greek officials stress that Athens wants to fulfill all the points of the bailout agreement, but for the reforms to fly, they have to have social cohesion, which means not making life more hard for poorer citizens.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble on Monday referred to the privatization fund, linking its creation to the recapitalization of Greek banks.

In comments to reporters after the summit, Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said despite “some delay”, most officials were pleased with Greece’s progress. “There is always room for compromise but I don’t think the ministers would accept rules that are much more favourable for people not paying their mortgages than in any other country”, the official said.

“I have every expectation that we will have very good news by this time next week”, he said.

The euro zone recapitalisation money is in the form of bonds of the euro zone bailout fund that can be transferred to the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF), which would then hand them over to the banks.