Greece

The Greek parliament approved a final piece of legislation on Thursday to reduce the bloated civil service payroll after international lenders threatened at the last minute to withhold the disbursement of a €4bn aid tranche, the Financial Times reported. Lawmakers held a special session to reverse an amendment passed last week exempting education ministry employees with doctorates and masters’ degrees from being transferred to a “mobility reserve” on reduced pay.

The euro zone has delayed its decision on whether to approve its next aid payment for Greece until Friday after Athens failed to fulfill all the conditions it had set out earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Greek Parliament needs to adopt the last of 22 promised measures by Thursday for the €4 billion ($5.3 billion) to be released, the Eurogroup President and Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem said Wednesday. Greek Finance Ministry officials have played down the delay, saying they would easily meet the deadline.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble opened the possibility of further Greek debt relief as he urged the country to stand by its commitments to scale back its debt and overhaul the economy, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. On his first visit to Greece since it spawned the financial crisis in 2009, Schaeuble said that there are no “shortcuts” to austerity even as he lauded the Greeks’ “determination.” The minister warned against focusing on possible debt relief for the country, though he signaled that Germany would be ready to talk if conditions were met in 2014.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras faces the first test of his revamped coalition yesterday as he seeks parliamentary approval of austerity measures to unlock bailout funds, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Greek unions, which held the third general strike of the year yesterday, demonstrated again today in central Athens and will rally outside the parliament building this evening as a two-day debate on the bill approaches its climax. A roll-call vote will come around midnight, hours before the scheduled visit of German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.

Creditors will release 6.8 billion euros to Greece in its latest emergency loan tranche. Meanwhile, in Athens, thousands rallied against harsh cuts required by the international lenders, Deutsche Welle reported. Monday's deal spared Greece from default but will require the country to drive through harsh new economic policies. In approving the package worth $8.7 billion on Monday, the European Central Bank, EU and the International Monetary Fund said that Greece's reform program, implemented in exchange for rescue loans, was largely on track.

The Greek government appeared on Sunday night to be on the verge of dodging the most serious threat to its bailout programme in half a year after agreeing to fresh reforms with international lenders, the Financial Times reported. Although some issues remain to be ironed out before Monday’s meeting of eurozone finance ministers, Greek ministers and members of the so-called troika of lenders said they had overcome differences on the most vexing problem – cutting the size of the public payroll.

Greece has three days to reassure its lenders it can deliver on conditions attached to its international bailout in order to receive the next tranche of aid, wire service Reuters is reporting. Athens and its creditors resumed talks on Monday, with a view to unlocking €8.1 billion in rescue loans, after a two-week break during which the government almost collapsed over redundancies at state broadcaster ERT.

Greece and its international lenders resume talks to unlock 8.1 billion euros (6.9 billion pounds) of rescue loans on Monday after a two-week break in which the government almost collapsed over bailout-related firings at state broadcaster ERT, Reuters reported. Greek officials including Prime Minister Antonis Samaras have said they expect the talks to conclude successfully, despite setbacks to the country's privatisation programme and delays in public sector reform. The stakes are high.

The International Monetary Fund is preparing to suspend aid payments to Greece by the end of next month unless eurozone leaders plug a €3bn-€4bn shortfall that has opened up in Greece’s €172bn rescue programme, according to officials involved in management of the bailout, the Financial Times reported. The gap emerged after eurozone central banks refused to roll over Greek bonds they hold, and comes amid signs that even the scaled-back privatisation plan Athens agreed to last year is falling behind schedule.

A Greek court ruled that shuttered state broadcaster ERT must reopen immediately, a court official said on Monday, offering the squabbling ruling coalition a way out of a political crisis over the station's abrupt closure. The ruling - which ordered ERT switched back on until a restructured public broadcaster is launched - came six day after Prime Minister Antonis Samaras took it off air in the name of austerity and public sector layoffs to please foreign lenders.