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Merkel ally:
Greece may need second haircut to stay in euro
Greece may need a second debt restructuring to stay in the euro, a leading
political ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel said.
The comments by Norbert Barthle, the Christian Democratic Union’s
parliamentary budget spokesman, are the first indication by a senior German
official that additional help for Greece may be forthcoming to avert the market
turmoil that would be triggered by its exit from the 17-nation currency
region.
“We should try to keep Greece in the euro zone,” Barthle said by phone on
Wednesday. If action is needed to do so, “not just taxpayers but also private
creditors would again be involved in helping Greece, but under strict
conditionality,” as under the first restructuring, he said. “Greece must fulfil
the terms of its bailout and terms of privatisation.”
Greece’s so-called troika of international creditors, the European Central
Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund, are in Athens
this week amid doubts the country will meet its bailout targets and reluctance
among Germany and other euro-area states to put up more funds should Greece fail
to do so.
“We really do have to wait for the troika report,” Barthle said, adding that
debt restructuring was a “possible solution” and was not yet a topic of
discussion among his coalition colleagues. Even so, “of course we have to think
what action might be needed if the worst comes to the worst,” he said. “But it
will cost us a lot of money.”
Greece underwent the biggest debt restructuring in history in March when
private creditors forgave 100 billion euros ($121 billion). By April, of
Greece’s residual 266 billion euros of debt, about 194 billion euros -- or 73
percent -- was held by the ECB, euro-area governments and the IMF, according to
the Greek Debt Management Office in Athens.
Evangelos Venizelos, leader of Greece’s Pasok party and a former finance
minister, advocates a writedown of Greek government bonds held by the ECB to
further cut the country’s public debt.
Greek debt can be cut by 12 percentage points if the ECB takes a “haircut”
and by 25 percentage points with the transfer of 50 billion euros of bank
recapitalization funds to the euro rescue fund, the European Financial Stability
Facility, Venizelos said July 7.
The European Union is studying scenarios to stop Greece from bankruptcy,
German newspaper Die Zeit reported on Wednesday, citing sources it didn’t name.
With EU member states unwilling to commit to anther bailout, officials are
considering a new debt restructuring under which state creditors, among them
Germany, would accept losses, it said.
The German Finance Ministry declined to comment on the report. “Where there
are delays, Greece will have to make up for them,” Finance Minister Wolfgang
Schaeuble told Bild newspaper in an interview published on Tuesday. “Once the
troika reports, the euro group will deliberate.”
[Bloomberg] |
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