Eurozone tentatively looks at helping Greece on debt

BRUSSELS/ATHENS: The Eurozone was to turn its attention tentatively on Monday to helping Greece deal with its massive debt repayments, a few hours after lawmakers in Athens passed unpopular pension and tax reforms one critic called "a tombstone for growth".

Officials in Brussels said the Eurogroup of Eurozone finance ministers would start talks -- preliminary only -- on a potential reprofiling of Greek debt to make future servicing costs manageable, despite opposition from fiscally hard-line Germany which does not believe any relief is needed.

Such reprofiling is not debt forgiveness in itself, but rather includes such things as stretching repayments out over years or tying them to economic performance.

The package of reforms passed in Athens earlier on Monday was required by Greece´s international creditors to free up more than 5 billion euros ($5.7 billion) from its latest bailout, although that outcome is not guaranteed at Monday´s Eurogroup meeting.

"A deal needs to address three issues: reforms -- we are there -- the contingency mechanism -- we are almost there -- and the debt issue -- we are starting the discussion," European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici said on entering the meeting.

The International Monetary Fund believes Athens must get debt relief for its economy to develop and wants the discussions to focus on capping annual servicing costs at around 15 percent of GDP or less.