Eurozone reaches last-gasp deal to avert Grexit

All updates in Universal Coordinated Time (UTC)

08:37 European stock markets were buoyed by the news of the Greek bailout agreement. Frankfurt's DAX was almost 1.5 percent higher by mid-morning local time, while the CAC-40 in Paris was up by 1 percent. The euro currency was down slightly against the dollar.

08:02 European Council President Tusk released the text of his statement at the press conference held around an hour earlier to announce the deal. Perhaps in a bid to lighten the mood after 17 hours of what by most accounts were at times heated talks, Tusk spoke of an "agreekment."

07:57 French President Francois Hollande told reporters in Brussels that Greece would receive a restructuring of its debt as part of the agreement.

"There will be a reprofiling of the debt by extending ... maturities, and negotiations, undoubtedly, of interest rates - that is part of the deal," Hollande said.

He added that eurozone finance ministers would meet later on Monday to discuss setting up a short-term program to provide Greek banks with the liquidity needed for them to reopen.

07:45 Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told reporters that a restructuring of the country's debt was part of the deal. He said the accord included investment that would help counter recessionary trends in the Greek economy. He said that while implementing the agreement would be difficult, the deal had sent a message of dignity to all of Europe.

07:37 Chancellor Merkel comfirmed that a 50 billion euro ($56 billion) privatization fund was part of the deal and that it would be used by Greece to pay off debt. The negotiators agreed that 12.5 billion euros were to flow into investment. Merkel also stressed that "for us, nominal debt relief is out of the question."

07:24 German Chancellor Angela Merkel also held a press conference. The leader of Europe's biggest economy said she would recommend with "full conviction" that lawmakers in the Bundestag ratify the agreement. "The advantages [of the deal] outweigh the disadvantages," she said. She added that trust with Greece "needs to be rebuilt."

07:18 Dijsselbloem told reporters that the Greek parliament was to vote to approve the agreement by Wednesday.

07:16 "There will be no Grexit," Juncker said. "So we are happy with the result."

07:14 European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Council President Donald Tusk, and the head of the Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, began a press conference to speak about the agreement reached on Monday morning, after around 17 hours of negotiations.

06:59 European Council President Donald Tusk used his Twitter account to confirm that an agreement had been reached to allow Athens to receive assistance through the European Stability Mechanism, while at the same time implementing significant reforms.

06:49 Luxembourg's prime minister, Xavier Bettel, indicates that his Belgian counterpart may have jumped the gun.

06:41 Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel indicates that an agreement has been reached.

06:09 In Athens, the Greek labor minister raised doubts about whether the coalition government could muster a parliamentary majority to approve the terms of a proposed cash-for-reforms deal with the country's creditors.

"Right now there is an issue of a governmental majority," Panos Skourletis told public broadcaster ERT. "I cannot easily blame anyone who cannot say 'yes' to this deal."

"We aren't trying to make this deal look better, and we are saying it clearly: this deal is not us," he added. The left-wing Syriza government, which is almost strong enough to rule by itself, is allied with the far smaller Independent Greeks party, from the opposite end of the political spectrum.

05:46 The president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, warned that the very future of Europe hung in the balance as leaders of the 19 countries that use the euro met in Brussels in the latest last-ditch talks aimed at reaching a new financial bailout for Greece.

"Today the European project is on a knife's edge, and the eurozone could fly apart," Schulz, a member of Germany's Social Democrats (SPD), told public radio station Deutschlandfunk.

Referring to an idea floated by the German Finance Ministry that would have seen Greece temporarily leave the euro, Schulz said: "This five-year exit idea is off the table. We don't need to talk about that anymore."

05:37 Slovenia's prime minister indicated that after more than 15 hours of negotiations by the eurozone leaders, they were edging closer to a deal.

"Everything will probably be clear soon," Prime Minister Miro Cerar was quoted by the DPA news agency as saying. "I hope we will reach the agreement."

pfd/msh (Reuters, dpa, AFP, AP)