Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg prime minister and Eurogroup chair, called yesterday (17 May) for a "soft restructuring" of Greece's debt provided that the country would put in practice deep reforms and a privatisation "exceeding the imagination".

Juncker said that the case of Greece was "beyond comparison" with Ireland and Portugal, the two other eurozone countries to have benefited from an EU/IMF bailout.

Speaking only hours after chairing a eurozone meeting which approved a three-year, 78-billion-euro emergency loan programme for Portugal, Juncker admitted that a large part of the ministerial meeting had been in fact dedicated to discussing the situation in Greece.

Juncker was speaking at the inauguration of a new Brussels think-tank, the Government of the Future Centre, led by former Bulgarian Commissioner Meglena Kuneva. The think-tank is supported by Accenture, a global management consulting company, the College of Europe and the Lisbon Council, an economic think-tank and policy network.