Greece bids to agree debt deal details ahead of crunch meeting

Greece will this week seek to agree core elements of a provisional deal with international creditors ahead of a key meeting of euro zone finance ministers in 10 days' time, as the country strives to unlock up to €7.2 billion of funding available to it under t its existing bailout.

Technical talks between officials from the troika resume today in Athens and Brussels with focus turning to labour market and pension reform as well as privatisation measures under consideration by the government of Alexis Tsipras.

The European Central Bank over the weekend raised questions about draft legislation proposed by the Greek government, which aims to tackle the issue of non-performing loans in the housing market.

According to an opinion published by the ECB on Saturday, the proposed law designed to protect primary residences from foreclosures may encourage “strategic defaults”.

The law, which replaces expired legislation, aims to protect low-income homeowners with primary homes worth up to €300,000.

Protection

“It is likely that the prohibitions in the draft law will incentivise debtors who are not in real need of protection to stop meeting their obligations or reduce them significantly, even if they have the means to meet them in full,” the ECB said.

Greece’s finances remain a perilous, despite its government meeting a debt due to the IMF last Thursday.

With the euro group of finance ministers due to meet in Riga on April 24th, Greek officials are negotiating with officials from the European Commission, ECB and IMF on the broad outlines of a provisional deal, with the aim of securing political sign-off at next week's euro group.

The continuing stand-off with Greece takes place as the IMF and World Bank spring meetings begin this week in Washington, amid frustration in Washington at Britain's decision to become a member of the Chinese-led investment bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

Chinese investment

Though the AIIB is focused on investment in the Asia-Pacific region,

China

has already invested in Greece through state-owned shipping company

Cosco

, and is in the frame to take majority ownership of Piraeus port as part of Greece’s contentious privatisation programme.

Meanwhile, the ECB’s governing council meets on Wednesday in Frankfurt for its regular rate-setting meeting following the launch of its quantitative easing programme in January .