No bailout yet for Greece

Greek unions began a 48-hour general strike on Friday to protest the latest round of austerity measures to be voted on in parliament in connection with a new bailout.

Unions CSEE and Adedy, which together cover more than a million workers, called the walkout and organized a demonstration in central Athens.

Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos told parliament Friday that the government was expecting "tragic moments."

"These days are the last acts of a drama that we all hope will lead to a happy conclusion, with a voluntary reduction in our public debt and implementation of a framework by 2015 that will allow the economy to stabilize," he said.

No new bailout - yet

The strike comes after eurozone finance ministers refused to approve a second bailout for Greece late on Thursday, despite an agreement reached among the political parties in Athens to implement the austerity measures demanded by the European Union, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank (ECB).

"Despite all the important progress achieved over the last days, we did not yet have all the elements on the table to take decisions today," said Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who heads the so-called Eurogroup.

Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos had announced on Thursday that all the political parties in Greece had given their backing to the budget cuts demanded by the troika - the EU, IMF and ECB. The cuts include a 22-percent reduction in the minimum wage, firings of 15,000 civil servants, an end to dozens of job guarantee provisions and a debt write down by private creditors to the tune of 100 billion euros.

The eurozone finance ministers, however, remained unwilling to release the bailout until Athens has demonstrated that the austerity measures will actually be implemented.

"We cannot live with a system where promises are made and repeated and repeated, and the implementation measures are from time to time too weak," Juncker said.

Juncker set three conditions for Greece to fulfill in order to receive the 130-billion-euro bailout, which it needs to avoid a default on 14.5 billion euros in debt on March 20. The Eurogroup chief said Athens had to pass the austerity measures on Sunday, come up with another 325 million euros to cover a 2012 budget shortfall and offer "strong political assurances" on the promised reforms.

The eurozone ministers are set to reconvene on Wednesday to decide whether Greece has met the conditions.

Italian PM in Washington

US President Barack Obama, meanwhile, gave Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti his vote of confidence on Thursday, saying he had "great confidence in the prime minister's leadership."

President Obama met with Italy's unelected, reformist prime minister for the first time since the former EU competition commissioner took office after the resignation of Silvio Berlusconi in November 2011.

The Obama administration has taken a keen interest in the eurozone crisis, which could hurt the ailing US economy if it escalates. The US president told Monti that his administration supported a "stronger European firewall," which would include "a more stable path for repaying the debt, but also the promotion of a growth strategy within Europe."

Monti said that although "the EU was not constructed to manage crises," he believes that "we have seen an update of this machinery." Amid on-going speculation that Greece could exit the eurozone, Monti said he sees a future where the currency union expands rather than shrinks.

"I would imagine a euro area that has a composition that is larger than the current one," the Italian prime minister said. "I don't see countries leaving, I see countries coming in."

acb/slk/pfd (AFP, AP, Reuters, dpa)