New loans to Greece cannot be ruled out: Juncker

(BRUSSELS) - New loans to Greece worth potentially tens of billions of euros cannot be ruled out, Eurogroup head Jean-Claude Juncker said Monday after charged talks between eurozone finance ministers in Brussels.

"I don't exclude it but we haven't taken that decision," the Luxembourg Prime Minister said after revealing that the Greek government had agreed to a vast programme of privatisation aimed at raising 50 billion euros (71 billion dollars) from a public sale of the century.

"The situation is difficult in Greece," said Juncker, signalling that the 27-nation European Union has come around to the idea that Greece, whose spiralling debts are now tallied at some 330 billion euros, may not be able to dig itself out of trouble without further external assistance.

Juncker said the EU's finance ministers had taken note that Athens, the first eurozone country to be bailed out, in May last year, had agreed "to additional measures enabling it to respect budgetary limits for 2013."

Privatisations, he added, "will have added importance."

"We believe the volume of privatisations scheduled in the short term will have to be revised upwards."