Greek government set for first talks with eurozone partners

Greece’s new anti-austerity government is set to hold its first talks Friday with its eurozone partners about its ambitions to secure a reduction in the massive debts linked to its $269 billion international bailout. But the talks come hot on the heels of a warning by the European Union and Germany that there is little support for reducing the debts, which the radical new government is hoping to cut in half. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is set to meet Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the current head of the eurozone group of finance ministers, which Athens said would mark the start of Greece’s negotiations on revising the conditions of its bailout deal.

I don’t think there’s a majority in the Eurogroup… for a reduction of the debt.

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker

Ahead of the meeting, Greek bank stocks rebounded Thursday after plunging the day before on concerns about the dramatic first moves of Tsipras’s radical new administration. Elected on Sunday, the new government has already begun to roll back years of austerity measures demanded by the EU and the International Monetary Fund in return for the huge bailout granted to avoid a financial meltdown in 2010, and says it will negotiate to halve the debt.

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