Pier Carlo Padoan

Germany's outgoing Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said that a proposal in 2015 that Greece take a "timeout" from the euro had been supported by the majority of eurozone finance ministers.

"That was the majority in the eurogroup, not me personally," Schaeuble said in an interview with the Financial Times published Sunday.

Eurozone finance ministers discussed the issue of three officials from Spain, Italy and Slovakia facing charges in Greece and agreed that Athens should resolve the problem, Italian Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said on Friday.

Structural reforms are key to membership of the euro area, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said while defending his 2015 offer of a Greek euro "timeout."

"If a country does not want to leave [the euro], then it has to make structural reforms - like Greece has," Schaeuble said in an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica published Thursday.

Pier Carlo Padoan, the Italian Minister of Economy and Finances couldn’t hide his disagreement with ECB on the Monte dei Paschi di Siena recapitalization.

“Greece has to become competitive to regain the trust of the markets and that is a long road”, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble stated during his arrival at the EuroGroup meeting in Brussels, Monday.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has resigned after suffering a heavy defeat in a referendum over his plan to reform the constitution.
In a late-night news conference, he said he took responsibility for the outcome, and said the No camp must now make clear proposals.
With most ballots counted, the No vote leads with 60% against 40% for Yes.

The progress of Greece’s fiscal adjustment programme and the deadlines for completing the first review dominated the meeting which took place between Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and his Italian counterpart Pier Carlo Padoan in Rome on Friday.

G-20 finance ministers endorsed the final package of measures for a comprehensive, coherent and co-ordinated reform of the international tax rules during a meeting on Oct. 8, in Lima, according to a written statement Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD). 

Italian Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said that the Greek bailout program must strike a balance between viable measures for public finances and measures that boost growth and job creation. Padoan was commenting on the decision by the ESM to agree on the loan to Greece on principle.

Italian Economy and Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said on Wednesday he was confident a deal would be reached between Greece and its creditors but warned that time was running out.

"We will have a deal on Greece, I am fairly confident,» he told reporters on the margins of a conference at the OECD think tank in Paris.