ATHENS: EU-IMF creditors began a new audit of Greek finances yesterday, with Athens hoping for a deal in two weeks to help it meet debt repayments, a finance ministry source said.
“The talks begin today,” the source said. “We want this to be over by March 10 owing to the country’s need to repay maturing debt,” the official added.
Greece needs to repay ¤6.6bn ($9bn) in treasury bills by late April, according to the debt management agency.
Greek state news agency ANA said there were ¤8.3bn in eurozone loans and another ¤3.6bn from IMF loans to be claimed by Athens, pending from last year.
The talks began ahead of a Bank of Greece announcement, expected by next week, on the restructuring requirements of the country’s four main lenders — National Bank, Alpha Bank, Piraeus Bank and Eurobank.
According to Greek reports, preliminary estimates based on stress tests by private analysts BlackRock indicate that about ¤5bn will be required to help the banks cope with ongoing challenges, including mounting bad loans. However, the Financial Times reported yesterday that according to IMF estimates, close to ¤20bn could be required.
The Bank of Greece declined to comment. “We will not comment,” a BoG source said. “The results will be released very soon.”
The so-called ‘troika’ of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund first bailed out Greece in 2010 with a programme worth ¤110bn.
When that failed to stabilise the economy, they agreed a much tougher second rescue in 2012 worth ¤130bn, plus a private sector debt write-off of more than ¤100bbn. Greece has struggled to meet the terms of this second package but hopes it has now done enough to satisfy the troika, especially in achieving a ‘primary budget surplus’ — that is, in the black before debt costs.
Greece says it achieved a primary surplus, before interest charges, of ¤1.5bn in 2013.
EU data agency Eurostat is expected formally to announce the size of the surplus in April.
“I am certain that a deal will be achieved before the next Eurogroup (on March 10),” Deputy Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos said on Saturday after talks with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.
“The results of sacrifices by the Greek people are extremely impressive. The fiscal adjustment is unique,” said Venizelos, head of the socialist party in the government coalition. He added that Greece still had to enact “structural measures, measures that boost competitiveness, modernise the state, open the market”.
The government has pledged to eliminate regulatory restrictions in food processing, retail trade, building materials and tourism that are “potentially harmful” to competition according to a study commissioned by Athens last year from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. However, Samaras faces risky elections in May in which his main rivals, the anti-austerity leftist party Syriza, are poised to score major gains.
Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras said a leftist government would demand an emergency EU summit on public debt. And if Greece were to be denied debt relief “we will cut off debt service payments, even unilaterally, if necessary to meet the needs of the Greek economy and society,” he said. AFP
