Eurogroup

Major opposition party New Democracy (ND) leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis called on PM Alexis Tsipras to refrain from closing the second review and binding the country to a series of new austerity measures. Mr. Mitsotakis urged the Greek PM to lead the country to elections following the negative developments at Thursday’s EuroGroup meeting. In his statement, Mr.

Greece hopes stronger than expected public accounts in 2016 will convince its lenders to sign off on a bailout review without demanding more austerity, government officials said on Thursday.

The EuroGroup released a statement on Greece and its talks during Thursday’s meeting. The full statement is as follows:

The Greek government has found itself in an extremely difficult position, following the tough stance adopted by the EuroGroup on January 26, which demanded the Greek government legislate an additional package of austerity measures beyond 2018 when the current program expires.

In statements made by Dijsselbloem after the Eurogroup he said that the Greek economy is recovering faster than expected. However, he underlined the need for the IMF to stay in the program. He stated that if it was to leave then the ESM would take its place, implying that the same measures if not harder would be required by Greece.

The majority of Greek stocks posted gains on Thursday, in anticipation of positive news from the Eurogroup meeting in Brussels. The optimism, however, did not extend to banks.

The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index ended at 660.59 points, adding 0.21 percent to Wednesday's 659.19 points.

Greek Finance Minster Euclid Tsakalotos will have a series of high-profile contacts in Brussels, ahead of Thursday’s EuroGroup meeting in an effort to improve the negative climate against Greece. Accompanied by Alternate Minister of Finance George Chouliarakis, Mr.

Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos is expected to meet with his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble at 3.30 p.m. before a meeting of eurozone finance ministers - also known as the Eurogroup - at 4 p.m. in Brussels on Thursday.

In the Eurogroup tomorrow the issue of the Greek evaluation will be discussed yet again. According to sources the evaluation will not be concluded if the IMF is not going to be present in the program anymore. In the light of this, Thomsen’s participation in tomorrow’s Eurogroup will be of special importance.

Eurozone creditors could approve the completion of the second set of Greek bailout reforms at the next meeting of finance ministers in February, an eurozone official said on Wednesday.