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ESM approves short-term debt relief measures for Greece

Xinhua, January 24, 2017 Adjust font size:

The European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the European Union (EU) agency that oversees disbursements, approved short-term debt relief measures for Greece on Monday, ending tensions between Greece and its eurozone creditors aroused by Christmas bonuses announced by Athens.

The measures are designed to reduce interest rate risk for Greece and to ease the country's repayment burden, ESM said in a statement.

"The ESM and EFSF (European Financial Stability Facility) short-term measures will ease Greece's debt burden, but the ultimate success of the program lies in the continued implementation of reforms by the Greek government," ESM managing director Klaus Regling said.

Regling estimated that these measures would lead to a cumulative reduction of Greece's debt-to-GDP ratio of around 20 percentage points until 2060.

Eurozone finance ministers endorsed these measures for the higly-indebted country at the Eurogroup meeting on Dec. 5, 2016.

They suspended debt relief after Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced he would give pensioners a Christmas bonus.

The measures approved by the governing bodies of the ESM are "an important step" towards improving Greek debt sustainability, said Regling. Endit