German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Greece must rebuild the trust of its euro zone partners and step up reform efforts in order to get further financial aid. The four-hour meeting between Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, the leaders of France and Germany and the presidents of key European Union institutions in Brussels on Thursday helped ease tension between the Greek government and Europe, and especially Germany. The Greek leader promised to proceed with necessary reforms. He announced that “the train is back on track” and within the next week a list of reforms will be presented to the Eurogroup. The European officials urged Tsipras to speed up its commitment to raise revenues and restore the economy. “There was confirmation of the will of all sides to work so as to restore the financing ability of the Greek economy as soon as possible,” said the Greek premier “We have to take that at face value and say we trust that this will happen,” said Merkel, referring to the debtor country’s commitment to meet creditor demands. “And then we will see what comes.” A four-month continuation of the country’s bailout program was agreed last month. Yet, the 7.2 billion euro tranche remaining has yet to be released to Greece which is struggling to stay solvent this month.
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