Photo: naftemporiki
The interest rate of quarterly government bonds that Greece offered today reached 4.62%. The Greek analysts considered the price considerably high but it did not surprise them. The level of the interest rate on short-term government securities sold at an interest rate of 3.75% in October 2010, which is significantly less than today's quote, shows the low confidence in the future of the Greek economy.
According to the information provided by the Public Debt Management Agency, the quarterly bonds raised 1.65 billion euros, and the coverage is 2.94 times. The value of the total bids in the auction is about 3.68 billion euros and the foreign investors present 32% of total bidders. The non-competitive bids accepted amount to 375 million euros and following the regulations for primary dealers, additional non-competitive bids should not exceed 30% of the auction value and should be made until midnight of June 23.
At the same time, the international financial analysts are still watching Greece. First, it is expected to give a vote of confidence to George Papandreou’s reshuffled government and then the mid-term recovery plan, which not only caused serious responses by the political circles but faces strong resistance by the public opinion, to be accepted.
The international credit rating agency Moody's states that early elections in Greece are inevitable following the recent developments in the country and the lack of consensus on the economic policy for the coming years. However, analysts believe that the mid-term recovery plan will be enacted because the formal approval of the fifth tranche of the financial aid in the amount of 12 billion euros depends on it. If the government's strategy is not approved, the country will go bankrupt because it will not be able to make the foreign debt payments.
The same view shares Standard & Poor's analyst for Greece Moritz Kraemer, who assesses that Greece would not get away with bankruptcy, Imerisia reports. In his opinion, the implementation of the recovery plan is quite disappointing and combined with the level of the foreign debt fully justifies the CCC credit rating of the country. According to Kraemer, credit rating agencies can not ignore all the moods of investors with respect to the development of the Greek economy, stressing that the country would go a long way to return to positive growth.
However, the statement of the German Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schäuble, who is generally known for his ultimate position on the Greek crisis, is somewhat optimistic. For the first time he speaks not only of helping Greece, but of real new cooperation between the two countries in the field of renewable energy sources. This cooperation could be beneficial to both countries and it could spark the positive economic growth in Greece, which remains negative for now.
"Greece has many more hours of sunshine than Germany and could export it as electricity to us," Schäuble said in an interview for the weekly Die Zeit, quoted by Vima. He spoke about the opportunities the liberalization and modernization of the Greek energy market offer along with the financing of the reforms in the country. However, Schäuble said that Greece would not get away without bold structural reforms and privatizations, in the public sector as well as in the labour market.
"Next week is the moment of truth for Greece," said the European Commission President Jose Emmanuel Barroso. He made it clear that if the National Assembly and the public trust the government and its program set by the Memorandum of financial aid, Brussels would not leave Greece and would not allow a possible bankruptcy. If the country acts, Europe would keep its promises and would not allow the country to sink, he said to reporters.