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Athens has requested from the Troika an extension of the payment of the debt. This was reported by the Sunday edition of the Greek newspaper Katemerini and rouse the spirits during the rainy weekend. According to an announcement by Skai, citing the publication, anonymous sources from the European Commission have admitted for the Greek newspaper that the Finance Minister George Papakonstantinou has asked twice for the overall increase of the payout of the Greek debt. During the visits of the Troika in February and April of this year, the Greek Government has pleaded for extension not only for the repayment of the financial aid, but for all debts. 

This way the Greece wanted to gain a little more time to be able to successfully implement the program of fiscal consolidation and the necessary structural changes. This time is necessary to effectively reduce the deficit and for Greece to start "producing" large enough primary budget surpluses with which to tackle big tasks and begin to pay off in stages. 

The answer to the European Commission, however, was negative, because such action would impact negatively other countries in the euro area. However, people familiar to the topic comment that Germany and Holland are among the countries that are willing to discuss a similar plan. Whatever the rumors about the future of the Greek foreign debt, the main short term objective of the government is to start performing its obligations properly under the Memorandum for program assistance. For the moment the black hole between planned and executed is around 1.6 billion Euros with tendency to deteriorate unless the government improves the operation and quickens the pace of implementation. 

In early May of this year, the mission of the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission are once again arriving in Athens. This time they will not assess only what was done so far, but also the medium-term rehabilitation plan, which Greece is still trying to figure out. Due to the recently existing structure of the state, the public sector appears to be deeply rooted in many sectors and industries. This allows for the implementation of mass privatization, from which the Finance Minister George Papakonstantinou expects 35 billion Euros, in the worst case and 50 billion Euros, at best, by the end of 2015. 

In order to deal with the Greek problem Brussels is considering scenarios for the partial exchange of the external debt at current prices for new securities with guarantees by the European Central Bank on the principle of Brady bonds. The news is from Financial Times quoted by the Greek edition of Katemerini and it is basing the article on reliable anonymous sources in Berlin, which apparently are well aware of the mood in the German capital. This article describes one of the most elegant ways of restructuring the foreign debt of Greece, similar to that used in 1980 during the debt crisis in Latin America. 

Hot recommendations for debt restructuring made former Prime Minister Kostas Simitis who told Vima newspaper that such a step would relieve many blocked forces in the Greek economy. He explained that such restructuring should be done and controlled in agreement with international creditors, because otherwise there will not be a desired effect. According to him, 20 years of severe economic hardships for the Greek people, just for the sake of the idea to avoid debt restructuring, can be absolutely fruitless. "It will be naive to hope that in the next 20 years there will be no economic shocks, monetary shocks or increases in oil prices.” Simitis offers fast renegotiation of the terms of repayment of foreign debt and in parallel, strict adherence to fiscal consolidation, while macroeconomic indicators in the country reach the levels recorded in the Stability Pact for the countries of the European Union.