Photo: enet.gr
Greece does not need to restructure its debt to solve its problems, believes the European Commissioner for Economic Affairs Olli Rehn. He also said that they still exclude the possibility of restructuring of the Greek debt and that there is a strong program of reforms implemented by the Greek government. The President of the European Central Bank Jean-Claude Trichet, in turn, stressed that Greece's recovery program approved by the international community and the European Union institutions is being applied and it is the most important thing at the moment.
Europe is clear that there will be no debt restructuring. After four days of information blackout, a series of denials of recent rumuors that the Greek debt haircut is inevitable broke in the Greek media at beginning of this week. Even the German Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schäuble known for his reticence to Greece said that the country carries out an extremely difficult program of fiscal consolidation and structural change and it is on the right track. However, Schäuble said that Germany closely monitors the developments in the country and not all of them are positive, but it is still early to talk about debt restructuring.
Luke Papadimos, an advisor to the Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, also announced his disagreement with the haircutting of the Greek government bonds in the hands of creditors. He explicitly stated that the first priority of the government is to strictly implement the recovery program designated by the Troika and defined in the Memorandum of financial support. This will help it cover its credit obligations on time and there will be no need of debt restructuring.
At the same time, the reassessment of Greece's budget deficit is expected, which threatens to completely derailed the program for fiscal consolidation. The new higher value of the deficit is expected to exceed 10% of the GDP, and some even forecast 10.6% of the GDP. According to the data presented late last year, the deficit of the country was 9.4% of the GDP. Then the representatives of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission made minor adjustments and it was revalued to 9.6% of the GDP. The government triumphed that the budget deficit dropped by whole 6% in a year and that this was the most successful fiscal consolidation achieved in Europe, but apparently it rushed the conclusions.
The government is forced to take additional corrective measures to diminish the impact of the increased deficit, a senior government official told Reuters and stated that the deficit could reach 10.7% of the GDP. The Minister of Finance George Papakonstantinou no longer denies that there will be a change in the budget deficit but he would not comment on its specific size until Eurostat announces its official value at the end of this month.
More information about the new measures in the recovery program is coming later in the day.