Euro zone finance ministers gave Greece a positive review of its reforms on Monday but divided up the latest tranche of aid to Athens, disbursing a 1.1 billion euro loan, but postponing its decision on a further 1.7 billion payout to later in October.
As part of an 86 billion euro bailout programme agreed last year with other euro zone members, the third such package since 2010, Greece needs to complete a wide range of reforms on pensions and labour markets, carry out privatizations and tackle other sensitive issues. But in a meeting in Luxembourg the euro zone finance ministers decided to split the payment in two parts and gave their political green light only to a 1.1 billion euros payment.
