FRANKFURT (MNI) – The European Central Bank views as “positive” the
agreement reached by Eurozone finance ministers over the weekend to
provide aid if necessary to fiscally troubled Greece, ECB President
Jean-Claude Trichet said Monday.

In a prepared statement he read to journalists on the margins of a
conference at the bank, Trichet said:

“I had constantly called on behalf of the ECB Governing Council for
all authorities and institutions to be up to their responsibilities. You
remember it was the constant message.

“I had said on behalf of the Governing Council that the statement
of the heads of state and government in…the Brussels meeting was a
very important agreement that I took myself very seriously.

“I said also [the] first day that it was a workable agreement. Now
I consider the decision which was taken during the weekend to implement
technically the heads [of state and government] agreement at the level
of the governments of the euro area as positive.

“We expect all parties concerned to continue to be up to their
responsibilities and of course the Greek government [to be] implementing
rigorously additional measures taken and that we had qualified as
convincing in the Governing Council, as you remember.

“We are participating ourselves actively in the work which is being
done by the Commission with the IMF and the Greek authorities on a joint
program as has been indicated yesterday in the statement.”

Asked to explain what Eurogroup head Jean-Claude Juncker had meant
when he said over the weekend that the ECB would act as “payment agent,”
Trichet added that “we are participating fully, according to the heads’
wording … [with] the Commission in liaison with the ECB. We were in
liaison with the Commission during the precedent discussions.”

He continued: “You remember when [ECB Executive Board member]
Juergen Stark was in Athens, we were with the Commission, of course [EU
Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner] Olli Rehn, and it was at the
moment of the working out of the additional measures that we qualified
as positive and we will continue as I just said to be participating
fully and actively in the discussions.”

–Frankfurt bureau tel.: +49 69 720142. Email: frankfurt@marketnews.com

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