European debt crisis

Greece is at risk of not getting some 750 million euros next month that it won under a debt relief deal with the eurozone last year because it has not completed agreed reforms, eurozone officials said on Monday.

Greece is at risk of not getting some 750 million euros next month that it won under a debt relief deal with the eurozone last year because it has not completed agreed reforms, eurozone officials said on Monday.

Greece is at risk of not getting some 750 million euros next month that it won under a debt relief deal with the eurozone last year because it has not completed agreed reforms, eurozone officials said on Monday.

Eurozone finance ministers will decide at their meeting in March whether Greece has fulfilled the requirements to receive the first tranche of ECB profit returns on Greek bond holdings, an EU official told journalists in Brussels on Wednesday.

Greece raised 2.5 billion euros from a new five-year bond at a relatively competitive yield, drawing strong demand in a small but significant step towards refinancing its debt from markets after years of tight supervision under bailouts.

Representatives of Greeces bailout creditors are in Athens to review progress on measures demanded in return for relief on the country's massive national debt.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has arrived in Greece amid tight security on Thursday, looking to turn the page on the biting austerity measures that sparked major protests during her last official visit to Athens in 2014, reported Al Jazeera. 

Greek lawmakers approved the heavily indebted country's budget for 2019 late Tuesday, the first since Greece exited an eight-year bailout program.

The budget lawmakers passed with a 154-143 vote still is heavy on austerity measures to ensure Greece registers a hefty surplus, in compliance with its debt relief deal with international creditors.

Emergency central bank funding to Greek banks dropped in November compared to the previous month, Bank of Greece data showed on Wednesday.

Emergency funding, which is more costly than borrowing from the European Central Bank, dropped to 2.7 billion euros ($3.06 billion) from 3.58 billion euros at the end of October, the data showed.

EU finance ministers agreed reforms to better fight against a financial crisis on Tuesday that fell short of the original ambitions to relaunch Europe by French President Emmanuel Macron.

The agreement between the EU's 27 finance ministers, without Britain, is intended to hand authorities a more powerful tool box in the event of a major shock to the European economy.