Eurogroup

Greek FinMin Christos Staikouras more-or-less echoed European and international forecasts for economic growth in the country this year, pointing to a 3.6-percent hike in GDP, speaking after his meeting with visiting Eurogroup president Paschal Donohoe.

Eurozone finance ministers on Thursday approved the disbursement of 748 million euros to Greece from profits made by European central banks that purchased Greek sovereign bonds.

European officials praised on Friday Greece's response to the health crisis and stressed that the country will be in the same position as its eurozone peers in the terms of the support it receives from the European Union.

Following Friday's agreement by eurozone finance ministers, Greece stands to receive low-interest loans from the emergency credit line of the European Stability Mechanism without any of the heavy conditions it had to meet in the 2010s.

Albeit at the last minute, eurozone countries managed to strike a compromise on an economic package to handle the enormous repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic.

In a previous editorial we had underlined that there was no other choice unless member-states want the breakup of the eurozone.

European Union finance ministers failed to agree in all-night talks on more support for their coronavirus-hit economies and their chairman said on Wednesday morning he was suspending the discussions until Thursday.

Greece has secured full fiscal flexibility in the battle to ease the blow to its economy from the coronavirus outbreak as the Eurogroup conference call that Finance Minister Christos Staikouras (right) participated in on Monday decided to allow all eurozone member-states to take every necessary measure to tackle this growing emergency.

Europe has to grant Greece some fiscal flexibility as the crisis-hit country struggles to deal with both the coronavirus outbreak and the migration crisis, leading economists agree in comments made to Kathimerini. The government expects some good news in this direction next week, but will not be pushing for it.

Eurogroup chief Mario Centeno on Wednesday announced the possibility of exceptions to the strict fiscal rules guiding the eurozone to allow emergency measures for containing the spread and impact of the new coronavirus.

The head of the Eurogroup Mario Centeno said on Monday he expected the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the eurozone economy to be temporary.
"We expect it to be a temporary effect," Centeno told reporters in Brussels, adding that the EU should carefully assess developments also for the long-term. [Reuters]