Greek banks to stay closed until funding flows

(Vatican Radio) The Greek government said last night that the country’s banks will stay closed until midnight Wednesday. That’s two and half weeks that they’ve been shut, as the government scrambles to find emergency funding after agreeing to a third bailout.

Listen to John Carr’s report:

The working group of eurozone finance ministers today is to work on a bridge loan to Greece to enable the banks to stay afloat while the Greek Parliament votes on the bailout conditions that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras agreed to early Monday morning.

Tsipras has also requested a 50 billion euro bailout from the European Stability Mechanism, but officials say that could take several weeks to kick in, and the desperate Greek economy hasn’t got that much time.

Greece’s creditors have given the country 48 hours to get the raft of agreed bailout measures approved by the Parliament, so the flow of funding lifeblood can resume.  That deadline expires Wednesday evening.

Meanwhile, opposition to Tsipras from within his leftwing Syriza party is expected to mount.  Greece’s powerful labour unions have called a general strike for Wednesday to protest what they see as Tsipras’s backtracking from his earlier policies.