Thomas Wieser, president of the Eurogroup Working Group, which prepares decisions for meetings of eurozone finance ministers has said he believes a deal on Greece's loan arrangements will be reached by August.

“I think after we today factually started negotiations... that we, in the coming weeks and also coming months, can certainly be capable of finishing it successfully,” Wieser told Austria's ORF broadcaster Tuesday.

On Wednesday, representatives of the government and Greece's international creditors started “technical level” talks in Brussels. Meanwhie, reports Wednesday said that technical teams from the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund – formerly known as the “troika” – will visit Athens on Thursday.

“From mid-August Greece factually has no commitments for interest payments... for the rest of the decade and so one just has to get past the months of April, May, June, August and then the situation should be stabilized sustainably,” Wieser said.

“We think that there are certainly still reserves of money there for the coming weeks and months, there are budgetary reserves, there are reserves within social insurance schemes of stateheld companies,” he said. [Reuters, Kathmerini]