The EU Finance Ministers are attending the informal EuroGroup meeting in the Slovak capital of Bratislava, Friday, with the progress of the Greek fiscal adjustment program being at the centre of talk. German Finance Minister Wollfgang Schauble set the tone of the meeting by making it clear before entering the building that Greece would have to implement all prior actions before any tranche could be released. EuroGroup head and Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem called on Greece to speed up reforms and complete all remaining prior actions in order for the 2.8bln Euro to be disbursed. Even though the Dutch Minister dubbed part of the fiscal program Greece has to implement as ‘unrealistic’, he kept the pressure up saying time was running out for the indebted country. On the matter of the legal prosecution of former head of the Greek statistical services (ELSTAT), Andreas Georgiou, Dijsselbloem called the whole issue ‘unfortunate’. On his part, Slovak Finance Minister Peter Kazimir said Greece had done a lot, but more was needed. Kazimir confirmed that the Ecofin was considering setting up a European Fund modeled on the IMF. European Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Taxation and Customs, Pierre Moscovici commented on the dispute between the EC and US tech giant Apple regarding tax evasion fines, he said the Commission was a political body and efforts were being made to quash tax evasion on a global scale. ‘It is clear that the multinational company must pay taxes’, he pointed out. Irish Finance Minister, Michael Noonan said he expected to be informed on the progress of the Greek program at the meeting. Austrian Finance Minister Hans Schelling remarked that delays by the Greek government in implementing the program of reforms was not a positive sign. ‘We cannot release the next tranches without the fulfillment of the agreed measures’, he said.