Talks to continue after Greece, eurozone fail to clinch debt deal

Markets hopeful Athens will secure bridging finance while economists debate prospects of Greek exit from euro

Published Thu, Feb 12, 2015 · 09:50 PM

London

AS expected, Greece's new leftist government and its international creditors have failed to come to an agreement to solve the nation's huge international debt repayment problem.

After seven hours of talks in Brussels, eurozone finance ministers and Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis could only agree that talks would resume on Monday.

An accord is crucial as Greece's total sovereign borrowings amount to 322 billion euros (S$496 billion), of which 247 billion euros is owed to the "troika" comprising the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

According to the terms of a troika accord with the former Greek government, the first step in the process is that 7.2 billion euros will be forwarded to the cash-strapped nation if "economic reforms", notably austerity measures, continue. From March, however,…

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