ATHENS, Greece ? The European Central Bank and national central banks should be part of a debt relief deal with near-bankrupt Greece?s private sector creditors ahead of a pressing deadline early next week, the Greek Finance Minister said Thursday.
Evangelos Venizelos said the deal should also involve reducing the interest rates Greece pays its European partners and the International Monetary Fund for its first bailout agreed in May 2010.
The ECB and European central banks have so far been exempt from a cut in the value of their Greek debt portfolios, estimated at more than 50 billion ($65 billion), to the annoyance of private bondholders who face an overall loss of about 70 percent.
The agreement, Venizelos said, must be struck by Monday, when finance ministers from the 17 countries using the euro meet in Brussels ? although the date could be ?slightly adjusted.?
?One of the major outstanding issues that must be solved ? is to secure the terms of participation of the official sector, that is our European partners and the IMF ? in the effort to reduce the Greek public debt,? Venizelos said.
Venizelos told a meeting of Socialist party deputies that Greece?s target of reducing its crushing debt to sustainable levels by 2020 ?requires the completion of a parallel Official Sector Involvement? ? beyond the 100 billion writedown all but concluded with private bondholders.
He added: ?That means that the European Central Bank must be mobilized, that we must solve issues concerning national central banks, and we must resolve issues concerning the level of the interest rate? of the first, 110 billion ($144 billion) bailout that has been shielding Greece from bankruptcy for the past 20 months.
A European Union official said Greece needs about an extra 15 billion ($20 billion) to get its debt down to manageable levels, and the rest of the eurozone could have to make up the shortfall. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on n-tv television Thursday that he didn?t see the need for ?any extra contributions from the public sector; we?re carrying everything anyway.? He didn?t address the issue of the 15 billion funding gap.
Athens is locked in tough talks on two fronts to ensure that it remains solvent, dodging the very real threat of a disorderly default ? which could likely be followed by a Greek exit from the eurozone ? when a big bond issue matures late next month.
Tags: Debt Relief
Source: http://freedom-debtrelief.net/debt-relief-greece-ecb-must-be-part-of-debt-relief/
alanis morissette r kelly vanessa bryant vanessa bryant kurt busch kurt busch nfl mock draft 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.