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Eurozone FinMin to meet Friday on Greece bailout deal

Xinhua, August 13, 2015 Adjust font size:

Finance ministers in euro zone countries will meet on Friday in Brussels to approve a bailout agreement between Greece and its international lenders, a spokesman for Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem said on Wednesday.

"Extraordinary Eurogroup on Friday, Aug. 14 at 3 p.m. on Greece," Michel Reijns wrote on Twitter.

The Greek government sealed the country's third bailout deal in five years with its international creditors on Tuesday. The much-awaited 85-billion-euro worth (95 billion U.S. dollars) cash-for-reforms agreement finally came after numerous rounds of negotiations since late January this year.

Earlier on Wednesday, Greece's third bailout agreement was submitted to parliament for ratification in coming days in a new race against time to unlock the first tranche of international aid to meet a repayment deadline on Aug. 20.

The vote at the plenary was scheduled to take place on Thursday night, a few hours before a Eurogroup meeting on the deal Friday.

European partners, such as Germany and Finland, underlined earlier this week that more work remained to be done and that the achievement of the deal was not an end, but a new start of cooperation.

Germany's finance ministry said it was planning to raise questions about details of the draft bailout agreement between creditors and Greece at Friday's Eurogroup meeting.

The ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that the questions were "part of the review process which is not yet completed."

In addition, the new Greek bailout package still needs to get the green light from other European national parliaments in the coming days before the disbursement of any aid. Endit