But that decision will have to be confirmed later this year.
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(L-R) Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble chats with Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem and Luxembourg’s Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna.
Mr Dijsselbloem said it had been a hard political agreement.
The bailout rewards Athens for meeting the terms of its 86-billion-euro bailout programme agreed last July. The remainder of the payout will be made after the summer.
Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, right, and Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, attend a parliamentary session in Athens, Sunday, May 22, 2016.
Syriza, the leftist coalition now in government, narrowly won the last election in September after asking voters to accept the third bailout.
Eurozone ministers reached on Wednesday (May 25) a vital deal to unlock urgent cash for Greece but analysts warned promises to tackle the country’s debt mountain are sketchy, spelling trouble further down the road. “Debt relief would be an acknowledgement that those assessments were incorrect”.
This may include buying-out the IMF’s bailout loans.
The gathering will be the first time that finance chiefs and creditors will discuss Greek debt “seriously”, he said.
“It’s not an option to go on without the IMF”, Dijsselbloem said, signalling that Germany would be forced to compromise on the issue.
In a significant development, the group of euro zone finance ministers also set out a series of measures to deal with Greece’s debt pile based on short, medium and long-term measures.
The lender said it understood eurozone countries’ apprehension to offer debt relief to Greece, given its “uneven record of policy implementation”.
The debt deal was described by participants as a compromise.
According to a Greek Public TV correspondent, the official added: “We certainly believe that we are making progress because debt relief is on the agenda – all stakeholders recognise that debt is highly unsustainable”. The IMF is pushing for measures to pare Greece’s mountainous debt pile but euro zone finance ministers are reluctant, fearful that it would create a precedent and reduce the pressure on Athens to implement reforms.
The IMF darkly added that without restructuring the debt load could soar to as much as 250% of output by 2060.
“Regarding our return to the markets, it’s our view that as soon as the economy is stabilized and begins to recover…it will occur slowly in 2017”, Houliarakis said.
“It was a broad-based rally as stock markets rode the wave of improving economic conditions in the United States, dampening Brexit fears, and a major breakthrough on Greece, which secured bailout loans from the Eurogroup and the International Monetary Fund to avert an uncertain default”.
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The eurogroup’s statement can be read here.
