Greece is likely to continue receiving bailouts from other eurozone members and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), making its abandonment from the eurozone unlikely.

Debt monitors informed the Greek Finance Ministry after their latest inspection that "Greek is very likely to get the next bailout tranche in September," an aide of Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras told Xinhua on condition of anonymity recently.

After the announcement of an additional spending cut of 11.5 billion euros (14.3 U.S. dollars) by the Greek coalition government on Aug. 1, the European Union (EU) Committee praised its determination to reform and continue with its austerity programs.

In a statement released on departure of the auditors from the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank from Greece, the EU Committee said all negotiating parties have already reached general consensus on Greece's bailout loans.

Greek Deputy Finance Minister Christos Staikouras told Greek media last week he expected Athens to get the next tranche of international aid in mid-September.

Recently some analysts warned Greece would be abandoned by the 17-member bloc if it failed to receive rescue loans.

Nicholas Ventourist from a think tank Greek Foundation for Economic and Industrial research (IOBE) told Xinhua that even without rescue loans from the EU-IMF, the sales of the treasury bills would still help to safeguard Greece's eurozone membership.

For a long time, the Greek public's enmity toward more austerity programs is believed by many as "inevitably drifting Greece away from the euro zone," whatever the rescue loans will be granted or not.

However, recent parliamentary elections and opinion polls indicated that most of the public prefer to stay in the euro zone, fearing any breakaway would cause further dramatic income decline.

European Council heads also want Greece to remain in the euro zone. Nicolas Veyron from the think tank Brussels European and Global Economic Research Institute said despite its small proportion - 2 percent - of the overall economic output of eurozone, Greece's breakaway could possibly cause the domino effect among other debt-crippled countries within the euro zone.

Currently in its fifth consecutive year of economic depression, Greece suffers an economic slump which is predicted to persist.

Ventouris projected the Greek GDP would contract by 7 percent in 2012, making the goal of reducing the proportion of debts in the GDP from current 9 percent to 3 percent by 2014 hard to achieve.

In addition, the soaring unemployment rate of nearly 25 percent and huge shrinkage of social welfare have resulted in public hostility toward further austerity programs, adding to the government's headache of reviving the economy.

The Greek coalition government has to tackle these issues to justify its eurozone membership, said Ventouris.

As the eurozone economic crisis worsens, other European countries, such as Spain, Ireland and Portugal, have been caught in a downward spiral of recession.

European Commission Vice President Olli Rehn wrote in the Wall Street Journal Monday the eurozone was at "a decisive juncture" and the debt crisis had both underlined the need and created the conditions for Europe to rebuild and reinforce its economic and monetary union.

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)