Still no good news from Athens. Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said today that negotiations with international creditors to obtain the second aid package of 130/145 billion euros are proving to be "very difficult". And even on the internal front the situation does not seem to be better. According to reports from a Greek television station Prime Minister Lucas Papademos has said he is ready to resign if he does not obtain government support on the maneuvers to be implemented in exchange for international aid.
Tomorrow Papademos will meet the leaders of the three political parties that support his government of national salvation, and if they do not agree on the conditions necessary to obtain the new aid plan, Papademos could call early elections.
In the meantime, negotiations continue with the private creditors of the Greek public debt. Yesterday the European Commission said that Greece needs to additional 15 billions of Euro. But it will not be the representatives of the International Financial Institute (IIF) who will concede more: they seem to have already decided to take on a 70% loss and asking for more is impossible. Instead, it could be the European Central Bank that renounces part of the profits on the more than 50 billion Greek government bonds it has in its portfolio.
