Multi-speed Europe

One of the biggest problems that the country faces at the moment is that despite the fact more than six years have passed since Greece agreed its first of three bailouts with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, there is a sizable part of the local population that is still unable or unwilling to comprehend why the country needed rescue packages and ended up in the current mes

The Greek government has assured Brussels that this month it will fulfill all prior actions outstanding from the first bailout review and pave the way for the disbursement of a subtranche of 2.8 billion euros.

Slovenian PM Miro Cerar accused Greece of failing miserably at protecting the external borders of the EU in an interview to German newspaper Die Welt. ‘The Greeks are not sufficiently guarding the EU Schengen borders, but are receiving financial aid for policing without using this help’, he said.

A senior French government official is set to head the board of a new privatization fund that will be established to speed up sales of Greek state assets, a French Finance Ministry official said on Tuesday.

The eurozone economy grew by 0.6 percent in the first quarter of 2016, the highest rate for 12 months, supported by household spending and private sector investment, data from the European statistics agency Eurostat showed on Tuesday.

The only eurozone nation to suffer a contraction during the period was Greece, whose economy shrank by 0.5 percent on a quarterly basis.

BELGRADE - EU countries cannot imprison illegal migrants just for crossing borders inside the passport-free Schengen area, the bloc's top court ruled Tuesday, in a new blow to efforts to crack down on the migration crisis.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang is said to have rejected a proposal by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to free Greece from all payments on its bailout loans until 2040.

The three main stakeholders in the Greek debt issue, namely the government, the European lenders and the International Monetary Fund, will have to agree that debt relief is unavoidable and should be compatible with realistic primary fiscal targets from the start.

German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel urged eurozone finance ministers to start talks on debt relief for Greece, saying it made no sense to crush the green shoots of economic recovery with further austerity measures.

BRUSSELS - The European Commission (EC) on Wednesday proposed that the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament lift visa requirements for citizens of Kosovo for short stays in the Schengen area.

The Commission also presented a positive assessment "confirming that Kosovo has fulfilled the requirements of its visa liberalisation roadmap," an EC statement said.