The President of the European People’s Party (EPP), Wilfried Martens, has welcomed the agreement reached by the Eurogroup with the Greek government:
 
“I welcome the comprehensive agreement reached between the Eurogroup and the Greek government on the policy package to succeed the current Greek programme. This has been an enormous effort by all sides, so I wish to acknowledge the high level of responsibility and readiness, which was exercised by all sides: the Greek government and main political parties in the country; the EU Member States; the EU institutions, most notably the European Central Bank; the IMF, as well as the private investors. The package was reached at a certain economic or political cost for all stakeholders, but the agreement is in the benefit of the Greek people. So far, the Greek people have made great sacrifices and it is our duty to create the proper framework that will allow them to bear the fruits of their efforts in the coming years,” EPP President Wilfried Martens stated.
 
“With these far-reaching measures, uncertainty regarding the financing of Greece comes to an end. I trust that the Greek authorities will now focus on implementing the necessary structural reforms in order to strengthen the fundamentals of the economy. I see this effort as an essential step towards regaining the confidence of global investors in the Eurozone,” underlined the EPP President.
 
In view of the 1st March EPP Summit in preparation of the next European Council meeting, President Martens added:
 
“We are now moving to a different phase of overcoming the crisis in Europe. Given that risks for immediate disequilibria have considerably lowered, given the decisions made at EU level and the necessary interventions enacted by the ECB, we now need to concentrate on far-reaching measures that will improve our competitiveness and enable our economies to grow. This is why at the next EPP Summit on 1st March, we will place particular emphasis on growth. It’s high time to complement fiscal discipline measures with growth enhancing measures, in order to deliver tangible results as soon as possible.”

Note to editors:
The EPP is the largest and most influential European-level political party of the centre-right, which currently includes 75 member-parties from 40 countries, the Presidents of the European Commission and the European Council, 17 EU and 6 non-EU heads of state and government, 13 members of the European Commission and the largest Group in the European Parliament.

For more information:
Kostas Sasmatzoglou, EPP Spokesman, Tel. +32-2-2854147
Javier Jiménez, EPP Senior Press and Communication Officer, Tel. +32-475480446