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Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis said Athens would be able to borrow at interest rates applicable to other euro zone countries only if it could reach an agreement with its lenders on attaining economic growth and sustainability of foreign debt.

In his interview with Bloomberg, Varoufakis said, "investors are aware that, unless the economy starts to recover, they will not be able to benefit from Greece," adding, "When a logical agreement on investment, primary surpluses and foreign debt restructuring is announced you will see how the interest rates on Greek government bonds will go down to 1%, as in other European countries."
 
According to Bloomberg, Yanis Varoufakis believes that the European Central Bank will help Greece avoid bankruptcy next month, when it will have no money to pay its debts. The Greek Minister of Finance said that the European Central Bank could give Greece 2 billion euro, "which are its profits from the Greek bonds held by it, in the form of a partial repayment of the loan to the International Monetary Fund." He explained that "this is just one example. They owe the money to us. It is our money."

At the same time, Varoufakis said he was "pretty sure" that Greece would have no financial problems, arguing, "We have made great efforts in the long discussions with our partners, the institutions, to get to this position. It is hard to imagine that Europe and the International Monetary Fund will leave us to stumble upon a relatively small financial problem."

Two of his colleagues had acknowledged earlier today that the liquidity problem of the Greek economy was deepening, stressing that the government was trying to solve the problem by imposing measures, but without specifying what exactly they would be.

Government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis said, "It is true that the case is about a hole in the public finances and problems in financing. It is necessary to cover the financial obligations of Greece and the government will cooperate on this issue both with the partners and with the state itself through the legal measures which it will take."

State Minister Alekos Flambouraris in turn said the problem with the liquidity of the Greek economy would be solved "with new measures that we will take." As for the loan which must be paid to the International Monetary Fund next month, Flambouraris said that "if necessary, we will ask for a delay" and insisted that it would not be a credit event, because, "If we collect 1.4 billion by the end of March and we are short of 400 million euro, we will ask for a couple of months’ delay. It will not be a credit event because of a difference of 400 million euro. Such a development is neither in their favour, nor in ours."

It is worth noting that, according to close associates of the lenders, the rules that regulate the loans from the International Monetary Fund consider such an action as a credit event, unless it has been approved in advance. The cases in which the Fund has permitted such delays are too small in number. For example, Argentina was able to delay a payment of a loan of $ 1 billion in January 2003 after negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, which lasted a year.

According to other sources, the definition of a credit event depends on the assessment of credit rating agencies.

Meanwhile, sources from the Ministry of Finance have disseminated information that the hole in the state budget amounts to 5-7 billion euro instead of 2.5 billion euro, as expected before the elections.

The Greek media commented that no government representative was currently able to explain how to cover this huge amount, adding that this would be impossible without taking extraordinary measures, which might include cuts in salaries and pensions.

In this situation, the outflow of deposits from Greek banks continues. According to the European Central Bank, they have declined to a level that is lower than that in the summer of 2012. Because of the elections and political uncertainty this January, banks have lost over 12 billion euro whereas about 5 billion euro in deposits were withdrawn in December 2014. Therefore, the money available to the Greek banking system at present amounts to about 155 billion euro.

Earlier today, Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis had said that after achieving an agreement in the Eurogroup, deposits amounting to 700 million euro had returned to Greek banks. According to the publications, however, the increase in deposits by 718 million euro is actually due to the payment of pensions in consumer accounts.

The outflow of deposits coupled with the decision of the European Central Bank to no longer accept Greek government bonds as collateral for liquidity has forced Greek banks to request funding from the Emergency Liquidity assistance (ELA), but at the much higher interest rate of 1.55%. For comparison, the rate at which the European Central Banks provides liquidity is 0.05%.

It is not expected that the situation will change in the near future if the Greek government does not take action. In his speech to the plenum of the European Parliament in Brussels, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi was adamant that the institution would start to accept Greek bonds as collateral only when Athens decided that it would fulfil all its commitments under the rescue programme.

In statements to SKAI TV former PASOK minister Theodoros Pangalos said, "The state is not paying off. We will get to the end of March, when it will not be able to make any payments and then things will become really dramatic. Maybe soon we will not be able to pay our obligations to the lenders either (...) We are talking about bankruptcy and the drachma, about a historical disaster," he added.