Brussels, 03/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - The governor of the Dutch national bank, Nout Wellink, suggested on Monday 2 May that the Greek public debt repayments might be rescheduled. In a lecture to students at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, he said that it sometimes took longer to pay back a debt than initially planned, which can mean that a debt needs to be restructured, although not in the way that some people want, which simply gives more time to pay off the debt. Greece's sovereign debt currently stands at €350 billion, more than 150% of GDP this year.
In March 2011, a eurozone summit decided to reduce the interest rate on Greece's loans by 1% and to give the country an extra three years to pay back the debt (seven years in total, see EUROPE 10335). The Greek finance minister, Papa Constantinou, has talked about extra time, saying in an interview with French newspaper Libération recently that it would be better to further extend the repayment time for the €110 billion borrowed from the eurozone and to further reduce the interest rate in order for Greece to be able to pay back its other debts. He said that the eurozone and the IMF holding all of Greece's debt would not be a good idea, adding that if one listens to the political arguments in northern European countries, where talk about financial aid to struggling countries has become very heated, then this is not the right time for such an option (see above article). Earlier this week, Greece unveiled a plan to put a halt to tax evasion.
At the ECOFIN Council meeting in Gödöllõ, Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble said that further measures would have to be taken if the progress report of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank in June 2011 were to state that Greece's sovereign debt is not sustainable in the medium-term (see EUROPE 10359). (M.B./transl.fl)