Wolfgang Schaeuble

Greece's international lenders prepared on Thursday to unblock about 8.5 billion euros ($9.5 billion) in loans that Athens desperately needs next month to pay its bills, and to give some idea of what debt relief they may offer over the long-term.

Germany's finance minister has said he is optimistic that Greece will win the approval of its peers in the 19-country eurozone to get the next batch of rescue money due from its bailout program.

Rarely has a government had to simultaneously negotiate on the most crucial issues of the country for which it is responsible over just two days, yet this is exactly what is happening right now.

Greek Economy Minister Dimitri Papadimitriou has accused German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble of being "dishonest" by blocking debt relief for Greece despite his acknowledgement that Athens had implemented significant reforms.

Negotiations over Greece's demand for a significant restructuring of its debt mountain are entering a truly perilous phase.

A Greek government official has said he is pessimistic that an agreement paving the way for new loans for Athens will be reached at the meeting of eurozone finance ministers Thursday.

"We are very far from a solution at tomorrow's Eurogroup meeting," the official told the Athens-Macedonian news agency on condition of anonymity on Wednesday. 

The optimism expressed by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble about a solution to the Greek conundrum at Thursday's Eurogroup meeting sent the Greek bourse benchmark mighty close to the 800-point level at Tuesday's close. The return of confidence in the market was also reflected in the daily trading volume, which cleared 100 million euros.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Tuesday he was confident that Greece and its international lenders will reach a compromise deal this week, a step that would unleash more loans for Athens.

"We'll manage it on Thursday. You'll see," Schaeuble said during a panel discussion in Berlin.

Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos urged German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble not to let domestic politics influence his decision on providing debt relief to Greece.

Pavlopoulos told Die Welt newspaper in an interview published Friday that Greece had implemented pension cuts and tax reforms as promised, and Germany should also keep its promises and approve some debt relief.

The Union of Greek Shipowners (UGS) on Friday reacted angrily to suggestions made by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble that the Greek government had failed to keep promises to abolish a series of tax breaks for Greek Shipping.