Greece 'Confident' It Will Receive Next Aid Tranche -- Source
ATHENS -- Greece is confident that it will receive the next tranche of aid, a senior finance ministry official said Tuesday, following talks with a troika of international inspectors over new austerity measures the country must take to meet its deficit goals.
"I am confident that the next aid tranche will be paid," the official, who was present in the talks, told reporters.
Following a more than two-hour long conference call, Greece reported it had made "satisfactory progress" in its talks with officials from the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank--the so-called troika.
But it also said the discussions would continue over the weekend in Washington, despite hopes that a deal would be clinched as early as Tuesday.
Greece has been under mounting pressure from its European partners to adopt new austerity measures to cut its budget deficit after it appeared the country would overshoot deficit goals set for this year.
At a weekend meeting of European finance ministers in Poland, officials warned that Greece may not receive an EUR8 billion aid tranche in October if it fails to bring its budget back in line with targets. Without that aid, Greece will run out of cash by mid-October.
In June, Greece's parliament voted on a medium-term, five-year budget plan aimed at reducing the country's yawning budget gap to around 1% of gross domestic product by 2015.
"The basic goals of the mid-term plan will not change," the official said. But he added that "to some degree we have reordered the mid-term plan and some measures may be brought forward