PM Samaras meets with FM Venizelos ahead of Eurogroup

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on Wednesday (5/11/2014) had an extensive discussion with Government Vice-President and Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos ahead…

Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis also participated in the meeting that took place at Maximos Mansion.

Venizelos underlined that the Eurogroup meeting, in Brussels, is crucial for the particularly difficult

and delicate negotiations the government is now carrying out in order to "complete this phase and move on to a new phase, after the memorandum and the troika, with all the safeguards of the existing European mechanisms."

Asked about Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem's statements, Venizelos referred them to the Finance ministry announcement, saying that Hardouvelis spoke on the phone with Dijsselbloem, who clarified that he had not made any reference to an extension of the current programme, but rather to the period after the current programme, adding that "it is, therefore, a misunderstanding."