Greece Pressed to Resume Austerity Program BRUSSELS - European officials signaled on Tuesday that Greece would have to renew its austerity drive before its next bailout payment is approved, but expressed confidence that the country's new government would have the funds to meet a debt payment coming due in August. The guarded optimism came after a meeting of European finance ministers where Greece was told to come up with around €3 billion, or $3.75 billion, in new savings "in the coming weeks," before its creditors would consider easing the terms of its bailout, the country's new finance minister said Tuesday. "They are asking that we implement the measures we have committed to for 2012," Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras told reporters in Brussels. Mr. Stournaras said the government could suggest alternatives to the measures it had agreed to, as long as the new proposals produced the same net effect. "We are considering the measures and we will push to be able to impose them in installments," he added. The Eurogroup - the finance ministers of the 17 nations using the euro - on Monday night heard a preliminary debriefing from representatives of the so-called troika, who returned to Athens last month after being away for several weeks following the inconclusive elections in May. The European Commission vice president, Olli Rehn, said the mission - which includes officials from the commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund - would return in 10 days or so for further work. "In that context we will assess the real financing needs of Greece now, in the short term," as well as "various possibilities" for meeting them, he said at a news conference on Tuesday. I'm sure they will find a solution to this problem, as we have in previous rounds. At an earlier news conference, the Eurogroup president, Jean-Claude Juncker, said the ministers would discuss adjusting the terms of Greece's bailout program in September, after the mission makes a detailed report of its findings. Asked about a €3.2 billion Greek bond held by the European Central Bank that matures on Aug. 20, Mr. Juncker said "appropriate solutions" would be found. At the end of June, Greece received the final installment of a €5.2 billion tranche of aid, €1 billion of funding that had been withheld following the country's inconclusive election in May. The timing and amount of the next tranche of aid from the €130 billion bailout agreed to early this year will be determined in the coming weeks, a euro zone official said. Mr. Juncker said that Mr. Stournaras described the country's current situation during the meeting and gave "reassurances that the new Greek government will take the steps necessary to bring the Greek program back on track." Although Greece made no requests at the meeting, its government hopes to win an extension of the deadlines for meeting its deficit-reduction targets. Spain was granted an extension on Tuesday. "When the time comes, the issue of an extension will be raised persistently because it is only fair," Mr. Stournaras said. He noted, however, that an extension would require additional outside funding for Greece - something the parliaments of some euro zone countries might be reluctant to approve. Meanwhile, the formation of a coalition Greek government - albeit a fragile one - appears to have calmed the nerves of savers worried about political instability. According to bank officials, cash has been flowing back into accounts at a steady pace since the June 17 elections, with some €5 billion returning within the past two weeks. About €4 billion to €5 billion was withdrawn in the first two weeks of June, and €8.5 billion moved out of the banks in April and May, ahead of the first round of elections. "The banks lost deposits due to all the uncertainty, but fortunately after the elections we saw the deposits returning, and at quite a satisfactory pace," the central bank governor, George Provopoulos, told President Karolos Papoulias in televised comments in Athens. Niki Kitsantonis reported from Athens.