Head of the Eurogroup of finance ministers Jeroen Dijsselbloem said that he expects Greece’s spending cuts and reforms plans to be finalised by next Eurgroup meeting, so talks can start about what is likely to be a three-staged debt relief program.

In an interview with Reuters, Dijsselbloem said that talks about Greece between the euro zone’s finance ministers had gone refreshingly smoothly on Monday, after what had been some ominous pre-meeting noises from Germany and the International Monetary Fund.

“So I’d like in the next Eurogroup to have a full and formal agreement on everything,” he said on the sidelines of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s annual meeting.

He expressed his desire that he wants final details on pension reforms, tax reforms, a privatization fund and contingency mechanism “done and dusted” by the next meeting.

Dijsselbloem said that Greece needed immediate help to get the ball rolling but also a roadmap for further possible assistance both when its aid package ends in just over 2 years time, and for if it stays on track further down the line.

“The way forward I propose is that we look at what we can do in the short term, what can we do to reprofile debt, phase out some expense loans quicker and replace them with cheap loans.”

He declined, though, to detail exactly how the debt relief could eventually look.

Among issues sources have said could be employed are lengthening both the grace periods and final payments of loans, taking more profits from Greek bonds the European Central Bank bought at the height of the debt crisis, and effectively funding debt swaps by the European Stability Mechanism.

“The good thing about the Eurogroup meeting was that there were very (few) red lines, very little no-gos. The only big no-go is the nominal haircut (writedown of debt),” Dijsselbloem said.

Source: Reuters