La Greece to repay its 3,2 billion euro debt with the European Central Bank "without problems" today, removing the specter of bankruptcy for the time being. “The question is resolved, there is no problem, Greece will pay off the debt today – said a source from the Athens Ministry of Finance -. We have the necessary money." Last week the Treasury of Athens had concluded a record auction of government bonds precisely in order to pay off the debt with Frankfurt.
Yesterday the Greek Minister of Finance, Yannis Stournaras, said the country "must stay in the eurozone" if it doesn't want to fall into unprecedented misery. “We have to survive and stay in the euro – the minister told a local newspaper, the “Vima tis Kyriakis” -, this is the only choice that will be able to protect us from a poverty we have never known yet. We have the most expensive public pension system in the eurozone, we cannot continue to maintain it with borrowed money”.
Just today opens a decisive week for the future of the Hellenic country. The president of the Eurogroup Jean-Claude Juncker (who yesterday defined Greece's exit from the euro as "technically possible" but with "unpredictable political risks") will be in Athens on Wednesday to meet the premier Antonis Samaras, who would like to obtain a two-year extension to implement the cuts and structural reforms agreed with the EU, the ECB and the IMF. A request already rejected several times by Germany. The Greek prime minister will be in Berlin on August 24 to meet the chancellor Angela Merkel. The following day Samaras is expected in Paris by the French president, Francois Hollande.
Meanwhile it seems that the Greek government has almost defined all the sectors in which to make the public spending cuts for a total of 11,5 billion euros requested by the troika (EU, IMF and ECB) in order to obtain further aid from international creditors. This was reported today by the Athenian newspapers, quoting sources from the Ministry of Finance according to which the appeal still lacks cuts for only 700 million euros, which should be discussed in a meeting scheduled for today.
Last Saturday, however, the German weekly Spiegel wrote on its website that Greece will need a total of 14 billion. Notheir last inspection the technicians of the troika would have discovered a new hole of 2,5 billion euros in Athens' needs for the next two years, which would be added to that on which the agreed cuts have already been calculated. According to the same sources, the package being studied by the ministry's experts foresees significant cuts in public sector salaries, pensions and a significant reduction in state employees.
Before being presented in Parliament for the vote, the measures will have to be approved by the two leaders who support the coalition government: the socialist Evangelos Venizelos (Pasok) and Fotis Kouvelis (Democratic Left).
