Greece is set to issue short-term government bonds on Tuesday to repay the 4,1 billion bonds due on Nov. 16 and avoid a debt default. Athens will auction 1 and 6-month bonds for a total of 3,125 billion.
The Eurogroup on Monday will not conclude the discussion on aid to Athens and "a new meeting will be needed to finalize the decision", but on November 16, the day of expiry of the Greek bonds, "for Greece there will be no default, nor premeditated, nor accidental." This was stated by EU sources in view of the Eurogroup.
"The ministers are aware of the November 16 deadline and the discussion on Greece will be made in the light of this awareness", assured a qualified source, confirming that he does not expect any "finalization" of the decision from this Eurogroup on the next tranche of international aid from 31,5 billion. But "once the decision has been made," the money that the Greek government will need for November and December will be covered easily. At Monday's Eurogroup, the situation in Greece will be examined on the basis of the documents and the Troika report (which should arrive by Sunday) and the "verbal" assessments by Draghi, Lagarde and Rehn. One of the outstanding issues is the sustainability of the debt reduction to 2020, which is being questioned by the IMF. There is also a lot of uncertainty about the hypothesis of a debt restructuring through a roll over of securities by the ECB. “This hypothesis is infinitely more complicated than you can imagine,” the sources pointed out. The bonds in private hands - they also reported - amount to 50-60 billion euros out of a total debt of 350 billion euros. There are no dates scheduled for a new meeting of the Eurogroup which could, however, be held by the end of November, perhaps on the 26th. After the approval by the Greek Parliament of the new 13,5 billion austerity measures for the two-year period 2013 -2014, Brussels is waiting for Greek parliamentarians to vote on the 2013 budget on Sunday. In addition to Greek Finance Minister Stournaras, who will attend the Eurogroup meeting on Monday and the Ecofin meeting on Tuesday, Prime Minister Samaras will also arrive in Brussels on Tuesday, officially to a meeting of the “friends of cohesion” group.
"It is unlikely that the next tranche of aid to Greece will arrive within two weeks, because among the various necessary conditions, a vote in the German Parliament is also required". This was stated by Marianne Kothé, spokesman for German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble at a press conference in Berlin. The government "does not speculate", added Kothé in response to a question, on the estimated timing for the payment of aid.
