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The Greek Ministry of Finance has officially submitted in Brussels a request for a six-month extension of the bailout, which will be in force from 1 March to 31 August 2015. This will back the bonds held by the European Central Bank, which are due in July and August.
 
The news was personally confirmed by the Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem on his official Twitter profile, "Received Greek request for six months extension." The Euro Working Group in the presence of Dijsselbloem will meet in Brussels in the afternoon to decide whether the Greek request is an acceptable basis for negotiations. In the event of a positive response an extraordinary meeting of the euro zone finance ministers will take place in the coming days, which may be in the form of video conference.

The government of Alexis Tsipras and the European partners waged a fierce battle in the past days, as one party only wanted an extension of the funding, while the other insisted that the funding must be accompanied by conditions for debt repayment. Jeroen Dijsselbloem found the formula, proposing to the Greek Prime Minister to request an extension of the Master financial assistance facility of Greece. Thus, Tsipras will not break his campaign promise not to request an extension of the memorandum on one hand and the European partners will have guarantees that Greece will not violate its commitments on the other. Formally, former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras had requested an extension of the Master financial assistance facility of Greece by two months in December.

To be continued