Ahead of tonight's Eurogroup meeting to finalise the terms of the new bailout for Greece, Guy Verhofstadt, Liberal and Democrat group leader in the European Parliament, underlined that the Troika plan only addresses the symptoms and not the cause of the Greek debt crisis:

"The only thing that can be said for the agreement expected tonight on the terms for a second hundred billion euro bailout for Greece is that it avoids immediate bankruptcy and buys a little more time for the Eurozone to agree a comprehensive plan - though I remain sceptical that the Member States have yet learned the lessons from two years of procrastination and half measures."

"The IMF/Troika approach though is blinkered in attempting to impose an austerity template on Greece that ignores the main problem, namely the bloated size of the State sector in Greek public life that is free riding on the back of the taxpayers and healthy elements of private enterprise. Squeezing an extra €300m out of supplementary pension schemes is not going to restore Greece's finances."

"The present package of measures focussing so heavily on wage cuts and new taxes is just alienating ordinary Greeks to the EU whilst creating resentment and frustration in the creditor countries towards Greece and its political class. Even with these austerity cuts, Greece is still expected to have a debt in the region of 120% of GDP by 2020.

"What is really required now is to tackle the causes of the crisis and not just the symptoms. This means a two fold strategy of reducing interest payments to sustainable levels on remaining debt whilst stimulating the economy through a concerted action plan between now and 2020. Such a plan must involve scrapping unproductive state corporations and agencies, privatising the banks, pursuing market liberalisation in the many highly regulated sectors of the economy and overhauling the tax system."

"If the Eurogroup does not push for these measures, they are only postponing the day of reckoning and further adding to Greece's woes rather than solving them and possibly jeopardising the wider stability of the Eurozone as well.

"12 Member States have just signed a letter to Messrs Barroso and Van Rompuy demanding a growth agenda for next week's Spring Council despite having agreed 7 pages of jobs and growth-friendly conclusions at the last summit of EU 27 on 30th January. If there is one country that needs a growth oriented strategy most, it is Greece."