The Greek government has agreed to €11.5 billion worth of austerity cuts over the next 2 years.

It comes after a junior coalition party dropped their calls to have them spread out over a longer period of time.

Greece will now discuss the cuts with its international lenders who need to sign off on the measures before approving the next package from a €173 billion bailout.

Details of the cuts will be announced by the end of the month.

The coalition meeting was held during an on-going EU-IMF audit of the economic performance of the country.

The coalition socialist partner Evangelos Venizelos said he had grudgingly agreed to this strategy but wanted European peers to publicly recognise the “huge sacrifices” the country has made over the last 2 years.