Brussels, 07/01/2014 (Agence Europe) - “There will be no write-off of [Greece's] debt”, said Managing Director of the European Stability Mechanism Klaus Regling in an interview published on the website of German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel on Tuesday 7 January. He was responding to Vice-President of the Greek Government Evangelos Venizelos, who stated this weekend in the German daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that there were “possibilities and the margin to improve the Greek debt structure, by lengthening the payment period, for example, and by lowering the rates”. Regling ruled out these possibilities, believing that the margins for new concessions from Greece's creditors are “extremely limited”. On the one hand, the rates on the bailout fund loans, the main creditor, cannot be further reduced (they are a little over 1.5% for the 30-year loans agreed and the interest for the next 10 years has been deferred, “which on the economic level equates to a debt write-off”). On the other hand, “the IMF will not fundamentally change its conditions”. Nevertheless, a small margin for manoeuvre could exist as regards “the bilateral loans of the first aid plan” but the decisions should be taken by the countries that granted these loans.
This response to Venizelos, who mooted the idea of a possible fall of his government and of a rise to power of anti-European forces should the government's request for reorganising the loan pay back conditions not be agreed to, is symptomatic of the misunderstanding between the two parties and of the bitterness that prevails on the Greek side. Responding to a questionnaire from the European Parliament on the results of the aid programme to Greece, Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras therefore judged the mistakes of the troika and the European Commission harshly - mistakes which, he suggested, have worsened the crisis in Greece, despite the efforts that have been made. Stournaras particularly criticises: - the initial mistakes in diagnosing the deep causes of the crisis in Greece and the countries of the south, especially the widening of external deficits; - the delay in, and untenable nature of, the first assistance programme, launched in 2010, when Greece was already in crisis, due to the programme's conditions being too drastic (the demand to reduce the public deficit from 13.6% of GDP in 2009 to a surplus in less than three years had considerable adverse effects which drove public debt to 175% of GDP in 2013, despite the efforts that were made); - the Commission's over-optimistic forecast for a return to growth in Greece in 2012 as the country was still experiencing a 4% downturn in 2013; - giving a timetable that was too tight for the government in the aid programme (7 months to bring about reforms here, there and everywhere, when they should normally have been spread over years). (FG/transl.fl)