EU confident Greece will agree to cuts for bailout

(NEW DELHI) - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Friday he was confident that Greece would enact "painful" and "extremely difficult" reforms to qualify for a new bailout package.

He spoke a day after eurozone finance ministers put off a decision on the bailout, demanding that Athens agree to more austerity measures.

Greece has less than a week to accept new cuts in exchange for 130 billion euros ($171 billion) in aid Athens needs to help make a crucial loan repayment next month.

"To restore competitiveness and confidence to the economy, they (the Greek government) need to make some structural, sometimes painful and extremely difficult reforms," Barroso told reporters in New Delhi.

"I am confident it will," Barroso said on Friday as Greek unions unleashed a 48-hour strike against the austerity measures required by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in return for the assistance.

Barroso, who was attending the annual EU-India summit in New Delhi, said that the new austerity plan was in the process of being "finalised".

According to reports and Greek party leaks, the measures demanded by the European ministers include a 22 percent cut in the minimum wage and 15,000 civil service redundancies to meet a target of 150,000 layoffs by 2015.

"This is the best way for Greece to get out of its current situation," Barroso said.

The austerity measures must be sanctioned by the divided Greek parliament when it convenes at the weekend and then are slated to be approved next Wednesday by eurozone finance ministers.

Greece faces huge pressure to bow to the eurozone ministers' demands for cuts as it must redeem 14.5 billion euros ($19 billion) in bonds on March 20 -- funds that it does not possess.