A pending 8.5-billion-euro loan tranche to bailout-dependent Greece - approved last week by the Eurogroup - will be disbursed in two installments, European Stability Mechanism (ESM) Managing Director Klaus Regling announced on Thursday.
The statement, carried in the ESM's newsletter, confirmed that 7.7 billion euros will be allocated to Greece in early July, ahead of the expiring maturity of previous bailout loans the same month.
The remaining 800 million euros will be disbursed after the summer, he said, under the condition that the Greek state match the second installment with its own money in order to cover arrears to the private sector.
As previously reported, money left over from paying the Greek state's obligations in the short term will be funneled into a "cash buffer".
Regling's statement reads:
"First, there was good news from Greece. The country opened the way for the third tranche in its (bailout) assistance programme by completing an impressive reform package. The reforms come on top of what Greece has already done over the past years... This shows that the ESM approach works, and that Greece can be our next success story if reforms continue. The next important step is that Greece prepares a return to the market, so that it can successfully exit its programme," he wrote.
