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After three meetings within 10 days, the Eurozone countries have reached a very important agreement with Greece, with all parties having made concessions.

The agreement provides for a four-month extension of the Greek bailout package. The process of ratification of the agreement by national parliaments will begin next Tuesday, after the Greek government sends to Brussels the first package of structural reforms.

Greece is obliged to complete the current programme. For its part, the European Central Bank will reopen the tap of cheap liquidity, and the government will push some measures within the programme.

However, all the measures the government has submitted to parliament so far, will be frozen until the end of the programme.

"We had very difficult negotiations and took important decisions on the extension of the Greek bailout," said Εurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem.

He added that €10.9 billion in European Financial Stability Facility bonds would be returned to the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund to be used only by the banks if they need the cash. It happened at the request of Greece.

As soon as the evaluation of the reforms is completed, Greece will be given €7.2 billion, as the remainder of the latest tranche. €1.9 billion out of it represents ECB’s profit on Greek bonds.

Greece commits itself to implementing reforms and abstaining from any measure with a negative impact on the budget. Greece also pledges to live up to its outstanding debt.

The partners will warrant the viability of Greek debt within the 2012 Εurogroup decision. They undertake to revise the primary budget surplus target, taking into account the situation in the country.

The reforms will be evaluated by the end of April at the latest.

During the next four months, the Greek government will fulfil its commitments under the current programme until it is completed. Its performance assessment will be done by the European institutions rather than by the troika. Transferring the rest of the tranche will be based on Greece’s progress on the objectives set in the package, as well as on an unanimous decision by the Εurogroup.

The Greek government vows not to take any unilateral action that might stultify the decisions of the memorandum. The two sides must agree before any change is introduced to the current programme, and such changes must be financially neutral. In other words, any cancelled measure will be replaced by an equivalent one.

The Greek side has not raised the debt reduction issue. This will be done during the evaluation of the programme and on the basis of the agreement with the Εurogroup from November 2012, when the country’s second bailout was decided.

According to Greek sources, the agreement does not provide for any additional measures beyond those in the programme.

As far as compensations are concerned, the partners will ease the requirements for a primary budget surplus. According to the memorandum, Greece is required to achieve a surplus of 3% of GDP this year and 4.5% in 2016 and 2017. The government wants a reduction to 1.5% of GDP.

The agreement opens the road for Greek banks’ to exit the emergency liquidity assistance (ELA), the price of which is too high.

Having achieved the agreement, Greece will stay in the bailout programme. Therefore, on Wednesday, the ECB will most likely resume accepting Greek sovereign bonds as security for the provision of liquidity.

The situation changed dramatically yesterday during the preparation of the meeting of Eurozone finance ministers. Greece was given the strongest boost by the French representative. This was also confirmed by the French Finance Minister, Michel Sapin, who said: "We must do everything we can for Greece to remain in the eurozone."

The German representative, however, took a much harder line: he emphasised that the Greek government should not propose draft laws to the Greek Parliament while at the same time pledging to abstain from unilateral measures.

ECB's president Mario Draghi played a decisive role in yesterday’s negotiations. According to some sources, he was the one who insistently pleaded with the Eurozone representatives to close the Greek issue.

Yesterday's meetings were attended by the Εurogroup president, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, commissioner Pierre Moscovici and the IMF director, Christine Lagarde. They met alternately with the finance ministers of Greece and Germany, Yannis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Schaeuble.

The response of the Greek parties

The spokesman of New Democracy, Costas Karagounis, said the worst had been avoided for the moment, and this was positive. However, the new government was back to the starting position it inherited from the previous government, but on much worse conditions: an extension of the existing memorandum, an evaluation by the same Troika, which will lead to a new memorandum. According to Karagounis, all this has taken place given that the previous government would have finally come out of the memorandum by late February.

In their statement, PASOK say the government has retreated in disarray. In parallel with that however, they appreciate the country’s remaining in the eurozone. "It is a pity that the country pays dearly for election lies, harking back and dissipating valuable time and financial strength", PASOK’s statement emphasizes.