Secret meeting on Greece... without Greeks

According to the WSJ participating in the meeting were representatives of the IMF, European Commission, the European Central Bank, Eurozone countries, and the finance ministries of France and Germany.

Yannis Stournaras who was giving a press conference in another room of the building was never made aware of the meeting.

The two issues dealt with at the meeting were on the one hand how pressure could be applied to the Greek government to proceed with unpopular structural reforms and on the other how to cover the 5-6 billion euro gap for the second half of 2014. According to the WSJ no decisions were taken at the meeting.

Asked about the article, commissioner Oli Rehn declined to make any comment. In Athens sources at the finance ministry tried to play things down by saying that such meetings “always take place.”