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Greek PM Alexis Tsipras chairing his first cabinet meeting of 2018 today. Photograph: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA

Over in Athens, prime minister Alexis Tsipras has told his first cabinet meeting of the year that Greece is in the “final stretch” of its third bailout programme.

Helena Smith reports from Athens

The leftist leader told cabinet members that he expected the debt-stricken country, under international surveillance since 2010, to return to international markets after its current economic adjustment program officially expires in August.

Sounding an optimistic note, Tsipras described 2018 as a landmark year that would be replete with challenge, adding:

“2018 is a milestone year ... a year full of challenges that in order to be met require hard work so that this can also be a year of vindication for the sacrifices of the Greek people.”

The third - and penultimate - compliance review of terms agreed in exchange for emergency funding under Greece’s latest bailout was reaching conclusion, the prime minister told his cabinet.

When Athens enters “the last chapter” of fiscal adjustment Greece will have closed a “huge circle of supervision which began in May 2010 when the country was excluded from money markets,” he said.

A multi-bill outlining almost 100 agreed reforms known as “prior actions” will be submitted to parliament tomorrow ahead of a three-day debate.

Leading members of Tsipras’ leftist Syriza party have voiced opposition to some of the more onerous measures, such as electronic auctions of property owners who are indebted to banks.