Private creditors meet in Rome on Greek debt crisis

(MILAN) - Private sector creditors and international banks met in Rome on Thursday to discuss the role of the private sector in Greece's second debt bailout, an Italian Treasury source said.

The meeting was held in order "to exchange points of view on the participation of private creditors," a source within the Treasury told AFP.

The talks were being held in collaboration with the Institute of International Finance (IFF) and chaired by Vittorio Grilli, the Treasury's director general and head of the EU Economic and Financial Committee.

Grilli had already met private creditors in Rome on June 27, the source said.

Representatives from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the Greek government were attending the meeting, along with international insurance companies and other banks.

The meeting is one of a series aimed at ironing out the details of the role of private creditors and is not expected to reach any sort of concrete decision, the source said.

"There are a range of discussions among various groups to try and refine the options that were discussed in the IIF's board statement of last Friday while also further discussing debt buy-back approaches," an IIF spokesman said.

On Friday, the IIF had brought up the possibility of a "rollover" of some of Greek's debt and a reinvestment into a guarantee fund.

"We continued to discuss the proposals already on the table," an Italian source said, referring to the French and German proposals.

The meeting came after similar talks organised by the IIF in Paris on Wednesday to discuss options for involving the private sector in Greece's bailout.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble has acknowledged a lack of progress "on the question of a quantifiable and significant contribution from the private sector" and called for taxpayers and investors to "share the burden."

But ECB head Jean-Claude Trichet has urged caution, insisting that plans for private bondholders to share the cost of a second Greek bailout should not be put into place just yet given that such a move could be construed as a debt default.