No way. The agreement between international institutions and the Greek government has been postponed again. The Troika (EU, IMF and ECB) has decided to grant another two weeks to the Greek executive, led by technical premier Lucas Papademos, to find the 300 million euros that are throwing fragile Athens off balance. The agreement envisaged by European officials provides for 150 layoffs in the public sector, a 20% reduction in the minimum wage and a lowering of supplementary pensions. Papademos and the leaders of the three most important parties (socialist Georges Papandreou, right-wing Antonis Samaras and far-right Georges Karatzaferis), reached a "broad agreement on all points of the programme, except for the one concerning the cut in supplementary pensions", reads the executive statement.
To conclude the negotiations and obtain the second aid package of 130 billion euros, Greece must find 625 million euros, of which 325 will be obtained from cuts in defense spending and other ministries. So Papademos has to find a way to find the missing 300 million without further displeasing the citizens, who have demonstrated in the streets of Athens in recent days, recalling the summer tensions. All by March 20, the date on which the next Greek bonds will expire which, if the country were not able to repay, would lead to default.
For now, therefore, the meetings between the Greek leaders are postponed. But not in Europe. The Eurogroup will meet in Brussels at 18 pm, from which the Greek finance minister, Evangelos Venizelos, hopes "a positive decision will be drawn for the new program on which the country's survival for the years to come and its permanence in the euro area depends". And private creditors will meet in Paris who could lighten Greek public finances by as much as 100 billion euros.
Even the ECB has begun to move to deflate the Greek debt. Frankfurt should communicate today, according to the Wall Street Journal, its willingness to exchange the Greek bonds in the portfolio (about 50 billion euros) with other bonds issued by the EFSF state-saving fund at a price that translates into a reduction of Athens' debt by 11 billion euros. That would be a significant change, because Jean-Claude Trichet had always opposed involving the central bank in "sacrifices". But this is a relative sacrifice, given that in 2011 the Bank achieved theoretical capital gains of 12 billion on Hellenic bonds. Hence the possible breakthrough by Draghi which, according to Reuters, however, is yet to be approved.
Meanwhile, at the end of the morning, the European stock exchanges are still proving to be cautious: Milando, after a positive opening, turned just below parity, while the other main markets of the continent show increases of less than a percentage point. The spread between XNUMX-year BTPs and Bunds, on the other hand, fell again afterwards the surge this morning, until it dropped back below 360. A sign of the fact that – despite the bad omens from Athens – the market no longer seems to bet on the contagion of the debt crisis from Greece to our country.
