Schaeuble: Ministers to discuss Greek credit line early December

Eurozone finance ministers will discuss in early December conditions for providing Greece with credit when its current aid programme expires, German Finance Minster Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Sunday.

Greece wants to quit the international bailout program by the end of the year, but has been at loggerheads with its lenders, the troika of the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank, over Greece's projected budget shortfall next year.

"At the moment, the troika and Greece have to determine whether Greece has fulfilled the conditions for the payment of the final tranche of the current program," Schaeuble told German public broadcaster ARD.

"Then we have to see what is necessary for next year after the current programme has expired. Greece is in a better position than we assumed two years ago but it needs support on financial markets, so the thinking is in terms of a precautionary credit line, with certain conditions attached."

Eurozone finance ministers will discuss the issue in Brussels the week after next, he said, referring to the December 8 Eurogroup meeting.

In early November, the ministers backed a credit line that would draw on 11 billion euros already granted to Athens to recapitalize Greek banks but never used.

Greece is running short of time to reach a deal on its final troika review by the December 8 deadline after talks in Paris ended last week without a solution. Athens has acknowledged a risk of delay to its plan to exit from the bailout by the end of the year.

Germany's Spiegel magazine reported on Sunday that there were two types of precautionary credit line that Europe could extend to Greece, and that the one with the stricter conditions would apply to Greece.

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