BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Finance ministers from the 17-nation euro zone will hold talks on Sunday about a revised bailout of Cyprus, two euro zone sources told Reuters on Friday.
The meeting was scheduled as Cypriot leaders said they were closing in on a deal to raise billions of euros demanded by the European Union in return for a bailout to avert a financial meltdown.
Cyprus was just hours away from a deal to raise billions of euros and unlock a bailout from the European Union, its ruling party said.
Cyprus’s president would travel to Brussels at the weekend if a solution was found there to the bailout program, a government official said.
European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose-Manuel Barroso also put out a statement on Friday evening saying they were postponing a planned EU-Japan summit in Tokyo due to the Cyprus problem.
“The ongoing efforts to find a solution for the financial situation of Cyprus require our presence in Brussels,” the two said in a joint statement.
The summit had been designed for the formal launch of free trade talks between the European Union and Japan.
(Reporting by Luke Baker, Jan Strupcewski, Martin Santa and Philip Blenkinsop-Writing by Matt Robinson- Editing by Andrew Heavens)