by Telegraph Reporters
Telegraph.co.uk
Greece’s economy has performed “substantially better” than forecast in its massive bail-out deal, according to the EU, ahead of Friday’s meeting of eurozone finance ministers to discuss the rescue.
Greece and officials from the “troika” of the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund are in crunch talks in Athens to finish a vital review of the €86bn bail-out of the Mediterranean nation before talks in Amsterdam between by 19 eurozone finance ministers on Friday.
Ahead of the meeting, fresh data released by the EU’s Eurostat statistics agency showed that Greece’s public spending last year, not counting the heavy cost of borrowing, delivered a surplus of 0.7pc of GDP.