First Economic Adjustment Programme for Greece

Back-and-forth statements between Greece’s lenders and the new leftist government have turned into a proverbial tug-of-war.

While the Greek side insists on clarifying that the Memorandum is over, ESM Managing Director Klaus Regling tried to bring the former back to reality, saying that the “Memorandum has not ended, nor has it been suspended by the loan agreement”.

Former Minister of Finance Gikas Hardouvelis makes criticism on governments so far actions and stresses that the bills announced to be tabled next week create great losses in states revenue.

Key topics of the SYRIZA Central Committee meeting are the Eurogroup deal and governments legislative initiatives and plans

From the SYRIZA Central Committee meeting the Greek Prime Minister stressed the following:

-Lenders plan is and always has been to lead our government to wear, subversion or to an unconditional surrender on memorandum cheques

Government circles characterize the deal with partners and the Varoufakis published list as a small step in the opposite direction that things were heading so far.

Shortly after the Greek government council ended, the teleconference between Eurozone FinMins began. The Eurogroup teleconference will be deciding on the list of reforms presented by the Greek government.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, in earlier statements, confirmed that the EC received the Greek government’s proposal late last night, underlining that it is not a “memorandum”.

The Ministry of Finance announced on Sunday that the International Monetary Fund board of directors approved the second and third review of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), allowing the disbursement of two tranches of an IMF loan worth 53 million euros.

"The Excecutive Board of IMF approved the review on 20 February 2015," the Ministry of Finance said in a press release.

Greek PM Alexis Tsipras characterized last night’s Eurogroup agreement as a deal which bridges the gap between the memorandum and the plan of the Greek government.

In his statement, he underlined that the battle has been won, but the “war” is still to be fought. He reiterated that hardship, and not just of a diplomatic nature, are still ahead.

During a press conference immediately following Friday’s Eurogroup meeting, Greek FinMin Yanis Varoufakis made the following statements:

- Negotiation aims to reach an agreement, that means being prepared for both mutual compromise but also for possible rifts.

Athens on Friday evening referred to a four-month deal to extend its loan agreement with eurozone creditors, a development that translates into a successful conclusion to the often acrimonious deliberations following the formation of a new Greek government on Jan. 26.

A request for the six-month extension of Greece's loan agreement with its European partners was submitted on Thursday morning by the Greek Government to Brussels, to secure a "protection umbrella for Greece's banking system."