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"No, but yes" to a new Memorandum after 2012

16 March 2011 / 15:03:54  GRReporter
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If capital markets remain closed for Greece after 2012, it will face a new Memorandum of new measures. This became clear from the statement the Greek Finance Minister George Papakonstantinou made after the Eurogroup and Ecofin, who cleverly avoided the word ‘memorandum’ as it is not of good reputation in Greece. "It is obvious that a new mechanism means a new programme for any country. We believe that no new programme will be necessary because we will implement this one correctly and the country will emerge from the crisis," said Papakonstantinou.

Deciphering his words, we will understand that the Minister’s hopes of the country’s return to the free credit market may be big. But expectations are that this is not going to happen because the Greek government has been experiencing problems with the achievement of the objectives from the outset. The revenue statement, the social security system and the reforms in the public sector are the main troubles of the Prime Minister George Papandreou’s team.

Meanwhile, Greece has to "chase" results not only in the performance of its internal programme of fiscal consolidation and structural reforms, but also in meeting the requirements included in the new Stability Pact, which should come into force this spring. The annual update of member states’ budget costs will be limited and will be determined by the pact. There is also a clause to reduce external debt by one-twentieth each year until its level falls to 60% of GDP, taking into account both the private sector debt and the cost of pensions in the state budget. Those member states including Greece which benefit from the financial support mechanism but do not fulfil their obligations under the Stability Pact will be fined 0.2% of GDP during the support repayment period.

Six central eastern countries defined the more stringent rules against the disproportionately large external debts and the macroeconomic imbalances as unfair, Reuters reported. Estonia, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and the CzechRepublic opposed the proposal of the European Commission for tougher sanctions, and for the manner of collecting the capital by the new permanent financing fund. It should be operational by 2013 and will replace the current European rescue mechanism which saved Greece and Ireland from bankruptcy.

The financial stability mechanism is expected to raise capital of about 500 billion euros from the member states and the contribution will be determined by two indicators – the GDP of the country and its population. The opponents of the current form of the fund argue that poorer countries with larger populations will pay higher contributions than richer countries with smaller populations. An anonymous representative of one of the affected countries told the agency that a country like Luxembourg will pay a much smaller contribution in terms of its capabilities, while a country with a lower GDP but a larger population will have to bear a heavier burden.

During the debate on how the permanent fund for financial stability should operate, the Athens Stock Exchange like other world markets suffered a serious decline and closed Tuesday evening with a negative 2.32% of 1590.44 bps. The winners-losers ratio was 1 to 3.8 and the shares of 38 companies registered an increase, 143 - decline, while 35 remained unchanged. The shares of the Greek trading corporation for tax-free luxury goods Folli Follie Group "sunk" by 6.38% following the message from the beginning of the week that one of their representations in Japan has been destroyed by the recent earthquake and the subsequent tsunami.

The interest rate or the spread-yield of the ten-year Greek government bonds climbed up again to 940 base points after a significant drop registered on Monday as response to the decision of the European Union to grant a delay to the external debt payment and to reduce the interest rates on the financial support. The large-scale crisis in Japan, however, hit the caution nerve of the capital markets and all global markets indicators collapsed, and the insurances against Greece’s bankruptcy jumped to 980 base points.

Tags: EconomyMarketsEuropean financial stability mechanismBulgaria
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