Eurozone Reaches Deal on Greece

Deal requires Greek government’s near-total surrender to creditors’ demands.

Eurozone leaders said Monday morning that they would give Greece up to €86 billion ($96 billion) in fresh bailout loans as long as the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras manages to implement a round of punishing austerity measures in the coming days.

The rescue deal—hammered out after 22 hours of, at times acrimonious, negotiations between the currency union’s leaders and finance ministers—requires the Greek left-wing government’s near-total surrender to its creditors’ demands.

But it gives the country at least a fighting chance to hold on to the euro as its currency.

“The deal is hard,” Mr. Tsipras said after the summit, warning that the measures required by creditors will send the country’s economy further into recession.

European stocks rallied Monday on the news.

By Wednesday, Athens’s Parliament has to pass pension overhauls and sales tax increases that voters overwhelmingly rejected in a referendum just one week ago. Greece now has to implement European Union rules that make it easier to wind down broken banks, including by sharing the cost with investors and creditors.

“Trust needs to be restored,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a news conference.

“The agreement was laborious. It took time but it was done,” said Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission.

“There won’t be a Grexit,” Mr. Juncker added, referring to a Greek exit from the eurozone.

In a concession to Greece, eurozone governments will consider measures to make the country’s debt more manageable, for instance by giving it more time to repay rescue loans.

The most divisive step demanded by Greece’s creditors is the creation of a fund that would hold some €50 billion in state-owned assets slated to be privatized or wound down in the coming years. The fund will be under European supervision, Ms. Merkel said.

More From The Wall Street Journal (subscription required):