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Greek bailout: 5 key conditions set by EU

European Union leaders agreed to a €130 billion ($172 billion) bailout deal for Greece early this morning after a long night of negotiations. Here are five key elements of the bailout deal.

Reduce the debt ratio

  • By Ariel Zirulnick Staff writer

The goal is to cut Athens’ debt to 120.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020, down from last year’s 160 percent. Greece agreed to cuts in pensions, the minimum wage, healthcare, defense spending, and public sector jobs in order to receive the new funds, Bloomberg reports. All of that will come on top of unemployment of more than 20 percent.

With no indication of growth on Greece’s horizon, reducing the country’s debt will be painful – and will have to be done mostly by cutting spending, since GDP is unlikely to rise.

And with national elections scheduled for April, the agreement could be in danger. The leaders of Greece’s two largest opposition parties agreed ahead of the deal to stand by whatever terms were reached, but parties opposed to the terms of the bailout are gaining ground in polls, according to the Associated Press.

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Mark Sappenfield
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