BRUSSELS, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- A $172 billion Greek bailout is likely to be OKd Monday, Germany's finance minister said as Greece's prime minister began 11th-hour talks to seal the deal.
Athens is "on the right path," Wolfgang Schaeuble said Sunday, pointing to pension cuts the Greek Cabinet approved over the weekend as enough to secure European finance ministers' approval of the loan package.
The ministers were to meet in Brussels at 3:30 p.m. local time (9:30 a.m. EST).
Schaeuble last week threatened to force Greece out of the eurozone but toned down his remarks after French Prime Minister Francois Fillon and British Foreign Secretary William Hague criticized him.
Fillon called Schaeuble's remarks "utterly irresponsible" and Hague said forcing Greece from the eurozone would be a technical nightmare.
The Greek loan package is needed to avert a government default. Athens must pay off $19.2 billion in maturing bond debt March 20 and cannot pay the money without foreign help.
Economists and politicians have said a Greek bankruptcy would have disastrous effects, spreading like a contagious disease to Portugal, Italy and possibly other countries.
The bailout would be Greece's second in two years. Eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund agreed to a first aid package -- a $145 billion loan conditional on Greece executing harsh austerity measures -- in May 2010.
While Schaeuble softened his words, he also told German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel: "You can only help people who wants to help themselves. We have been ready for some time to help the Greeks build a more efficient tax administration but the offer has still not been taken up."
And his Finance Ministry created a report saying Greece failed to give priority to implementing the imposed austerity reforms, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported.
The report called for greater Greek cooperation with Brussels as a precondition for the second bailout, the newspaper said.
Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, who flew to Brussels Sunday, sought Monday to assure skeptics his government would truly deliver on the reforms, British newspaper The Guardian reported.
He was also to hold talks with private-creditor representatives on a related debt-swap deal to cut $132 billion off Greece's liability, forcing the creditors to take a 70-percent cut in the value of their investments.
The swap, if approved, would begin by March 8 and be completed by March 11, state-run Athens News Agency reported.