Brussels, 25/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - Shortly ahead of the results, possibly on 30 November, of the stress tests on Greek banks carried out by US company Blackrock, the governor of the country's central bank, George Provopoulos, said on Monday 25 November that there was enough cash left of the eurozone aid to cover any capital shortfalls at the banks.
In an interview with Greek website Banking News, Provopoulos said that he couldn't speak ahead of Blackrock's publication of the report, but it was safe to say that there was room for manoeuvre to deal with any capital shortfalls.
The European Commission agrees with this. Its most recent monitoring report (July 2013) says that around €10 billion of the total €50 billion aid package for banks is available. In July, it thought that some of it could be used to cover capital shortfalls in the structural adjustment programme, but is now calling for a safety buffer to be established for the banks. The Commission says it has not been sent a preliminary version of the report from Blackrock.
Meeting in Brussels on Friday (see related article), the Eurogroup encouraged the Greek government to keep its commitments. Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said that the ministers' position had not changed and he called for the rapid conclusion of the troika (Commission, ECB and IMF) mission, which, without agreement on the budget, will continue remotely. In an interview with Greek newspaper Ekathimerini on Sunday, the president of the IMF, Poul Thomsen, said that the IMF agreed that horizontal measures should be avoided when it comes to getting the country's budget on track, and the financing gap cannot be discussed until the troika mission is completed, explained IMF spokesman Gerry Rice, now that the acute financial pressure of last week has been dissipated. He said that Greece's financing needs for the next few months have to be filled using existing liquidity buffers. (EL and MB/transl.fl)