Photo - Reuters
At a time when in Greece is going on a real witch hunt among the media which publish information on the possible rescheduling of foreign debt of the country or on its exiting from the eurozone, international analysts do not cease to warn that the economic situation in Greece is extremely unstable and hides a lot of time bombs. By order of the Prime Minister George Papandreou prosecutors of Athens Eleni Raykou and of Thessaloniki Argiris Tsihlas launched an investigation against the media which spread rumors, according to them, for some imminent economic catastrophe in the country.
Meanwhile, the Bloomberg agency published a poll conducted among 1001 financial analysts worldwide. 41 per cent of them believe that the release of Greece from the eurozone is likely to happen. According to experts the Greek prosecutors now have focused their attack on blogs and on-line media, claiming that the mints in Athens and Thessaloniki have already started to print drachmas. Newspaper "Ethnos" did not reject also the option that the rumors of leaving the eurozoen are spread by the government itself, which thus sought to prepare the public for a new wave of more stringent financial constraints.
For the international investors the Greek economy remains extremely risky, and its spread-index and CDS insurances continue to be extremely high, despite the plan for its salvation by the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission. According to the latest information the net capital which is invested in the purchase of the CDS insurances, which will compensate the owners of Greek government bonds in case the country goes bankrupt and is unable to repay its obligations to creditors have reached 8 billion dollars. Again according to the newspaper "Ethnos" that capital came from large U.S. banks that are so confident in the collapse of the Greek economy, that are ready to buy CDS insurances at very high prices because they are assured of the profits which they will receive.
Bank of America and Merryll Lynch in their reports to investors and analysts speak clearly of the rescheduling of the Greek Foreign Debt and explain technical details about the consequences of that decision. In an interview with financial weekly "Kefaleo" the chief economist of ING Rob Carnel also assessed that Greece will have a difficult time to deal with the payment of its debt. According to him, after two years the country will be faced with the need to beg for another 110 billion euros from the IMF and the EU in order to cover its deficit, which according to him would be about 8 percent of the GDP of the country. At the same time according to the estimations of the economist of ING government debt will be around 140 per cent of the GDP. Rob Carnel assesses as very probable that at that time Greece to ask for the so-called "haircut" of debt by 40 percent.
Analyst also doubts to what extent are the Greeks disciplined and will they be able to withstand to live for a long time under the financial constraints. Rob Carnel's doubts are shared also by representatives of many international banks that send their teams in Athens, to persuade major investors in the Greek banks to transfer their money into safer foreign banks. According to many observers, this has caused the anger of the Greek banking circles which have pressed the government of George Papandreou to end the speculations about rescheduling of the debt or about the exiting of the eurozone. And the investigation of the writings of bloggers regarding the mints in Athens and Thessaloniki are only for intimidation of the “parrots”, as a government representative discussed the media.