Troika report on Greece is 'positive': Juncker

(BRUSSELS) - A long-awaited report on Greece's economic reform programme by its three international creditors, the EU, ECB and IMF "troika", is "positive", Eurogroup chief Jean-Claude Juncker said on Monday.

Arriving for talks between the 17 eurozone finance ministers later in the day, Juncker said they had received the report on Sunday night and it "is positive in its fundamental tone because the Greeks really delivered. Now it is for us to deliver."

The Luxembourg premier said that a new austerity package adopted Wednesday and a cost-cutting 2013 budget agreed late Sunday were "very ambitious" and "fulfills our wishlist nearly completely."

"Greece is accomplishing step by step what we expected," he added.

Juncker said the ministers would discuss the report in detail but would make "no definitive decision today" on the release of a 31.5 billion-euro instalment from a second international bailout of Greece needed to stave off bankruptcy.

He said he believed the general feeling would be to organise the disbursement "in the best way possible" and for the ministers to agree a calendar.

"But there remain some open questions concerning Greece`s debt sustainabilty and the prolongation of the adjustment path," he said.

"Do we give them two more years or not? I am in favour of doing that."

But Juncker admitted that if there were a decision to give Athens a two-year extension to 2016 to bring its public deficit under 3.0 percent of GDP and reduce its debt mountain "from that emerges financing questions, if not a gap."

The gap has been estimated at around 30 billion euros, a substantial sum as bailout-weary nations such as Germany, Finland and the Netherlands grow increasingly reluctant to rescue weaker euro states.

Any decision to extend Greece's deadline would also require parliamentary approval in Germany, the Netherlands and Slovakia.