Talks with institutions on banks, NPLs to continue on Friday, Econ ministry sources said

"We will not back down and a political solution to solve the problem should not be ruled out, if there is no agreement," the same sources said.

The sources noted that the institutions were gravitating toward measures for protecting home owners that will restrict eligibility to the most vulnerable social groups. The new law will be activated as soon as the new eligibility terms are set, while they ruled out any discussion on applying market rates for property at the current time.

They also noted that the discussion was not about the sale of loans to foreign funds, which they said would be examined next month.

According to information given to ANA-MPA, the government proposal sets three eligibility criteria:

That the property have a maximum tax office-assessed value of 200,000 euros for a single person, 250,000 euros for a couple plus 25,000 euros for each child up to three children; income of up to 35,000 euros annually; and total debts up to 200,000 euros.

The institutions' counterproposal calls says eligibility should be confined to properties with a tax-office assessed value ranging from 70,000-120,000 euros, total debts of 120,000 euros and much lower income levels of 8180 euros annually for individuals, 13,917 euros annually for couples and an additional 3,350 euros per child up to three children.

The Greek side's proposal is estimated to cover 72.4 pct of debtors while that of the creditors will only protect between 17.3 pct-40 pct of debtors.