Greece ready to talk after deal on its second bailout

After weeks of what was described by eurozone president Jeroen Dijsselbloem as "wasting time", agreement was reached to start technical talks with Greece on its bailout.

Athens, which is on a very tight rein from the ECB in providing liquidity for its banks and which has debt repayments due shortly, came up with reforms it says it is willing to complete in exchange for the remaining €7bn from the second bailout.

Representatives of the European Commission, the IMF, and the ECB will meet experts from Athens in Brussels tomorrow to map out the course of the reforms.

At the same time, technical experts from the three institutions will be in Athens working in parallel, researching and providing information to the negotiators in Brussels.

The agreement was reached quickly by eurozone finance ministers in Brussels and it was clear that many were furious with Athens following what were seen as threats and time-wasting by the government.

This included Panos Kammenos, defence minister and leader of the small coalition party, threatening to “flood” the rest of the EU with illegal migrants by providing them with documents, while finance minister Yanis Varoufakis was reported as suggesting tourists could become covert tax inspectors.

Negotiations must be finished by the end of April but any hopes that Athens had that it could agree parts of the remaining reforms in exchange for some funds was dashed by Mr Dijsselbloem, who insisted that the full remaining programme will have to be agreed first.

“We have spent two weeks discussing who meets whom, where, and on what agenda and it has been a complete waste of time,” he said. “We have spent long enough taking about it and so we meet Wednesday.

“The first step is to reach agreement on the whole thing. Some changes are possible in toehold programme, but on the whole they would have to remain fully on track in fiscal terms.”

Mr Dijsselbloem added that they need agreement by the end of April on all the reforms they expect the Greek government to deliver during the four-month extension of the programme, which ends in June.

Once all reforms are agreed, he would consider part dispersements but only foot of agreement on the whole thing and its implementation.

EU officials are ready to support the Greek government once it agrees the details of whole package and its implementation.

“If there is pressure for financing needs it should be helpful to get the whole thing back on track, but no disbursements without implementation,” said Mr Dijsselbloem.

Greek negotiators will be located in the office of the deputy prime minister, Yannis Dragasakis, who attends the eurogroup meetings, said Finance Minister Michael Noonan.