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Eurozone urges Greece to pick up the pace of reforms
歐元區敦促希臘加快改革步伐
Eurozone Finance Ministers will resume their meeting in Riga on Saturday, with Greece again the main topic of conversation. The country has six days to come up with a reform plan, or face the prospect that the EU will cut off its bailout package. As the deadline nears, there's a new sense of optimism in Athens that Greece and its creditors will manage to hammer out a deal in time.
After meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the sidelines of Thursday's leaders summit, Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras insisted he wants a deal for Greece concluded by the end of this month.
An agreement would unlock access to bailout loans totaling the equivalent of nearly eight billion US dollars. But when finance ministers met in Riga on Friday, there was clear pessimism surrounding that deadline.
It's unclear exactly when Greece will run out of cash, but it has a series of repayments due to the International Monetary Fund in May.
The threat of contagion from a potential Greek default remains the single biggest risk to the euro zone's recent and still fragile economic recovery.
Despite the risks the Eurogroup president made it clear on Friday that any major concessions would have to come from Athens.
With polls showing that risks of a Greek default are rising sharply, a growing number of European politicians and Central Bank officials are now saying such an event may not automatically mean Greece would have to exit the single currency area.
