Giorgos Chouliarakis

Eurozone President Jeroen Dijsselbloem has issued a written statement following the informal mini-Eurozone meeting in Brussels, late Friday. “Today the Greek minister of Finance, the institutions (European Commission, ECB, ESM and IMF) and I had a constructive meeting on the state of play of the second review.

Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem said the size of Greece’s primary budget surplus, which excludes interest payments, would be one topic of discussion at a planned meeting in Brussels later on Friday. Apart from Mr.

Saturday’s three and a half hours teleconference between Greece creditors and 5 key Greek Ministers involved in negotiations -Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, Economy and Development Minister Dimitris Papadimitriou, Labour Minister Efi Achtzoglou, Alternate Finance Minister Giorgos Chouliarakis, and Environment and Energy Minister Giorgos Stathakis- revealed the rift between the two sides on

Military and police personnel were on Wednesday staging a protest outside the General Accounts Office in central Athens over cuts to their salaries.

Protesters were requesting a meeting with alternate Minister of Finance Giorgos Chouliarakis to discuss the issue.

Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos  and Alternate Finance Minister Giorgos Chouliarakis will ask for a lower fiscal target for Greece after 2018 from the representatives of the institutions on Thursday.

Today’s Euroworking Group meeting is expected to be of crucial importance, while Alternate Finance Minister Giorgos Chouliarakis will also participate in order to examine the situation in view of the Eurogroup meeting to take place on May 9.

The Greek government will meet with the representatives of the institution on Saturday in Athens, after their quick trip to Brussels to inform the institutions about the draft agreement.

The meeting held between Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, Economy Minister George Stathakis and Alternate Finance Minister Giorgos Chouliarakis and the representatives of the institutions concluded in Athens on Wednesday evening without reaching any conclusions.

International media and European partners believe that the phone-tapping revealed by wikileaks was carried out by Greek intelligence service, posing more difficulties in the negotiation talks for the program review.

The new round of contacts between Greece and its lenders start tomorrow with EuroWorking Group extraordinary teleconference meeting to assess the progress of negotiation talks in an attempt to conclude the program review by mid-April.