Brussels, 05/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - The ECB is “the first to want to resume the financing of the Greek economy, as long as the conditions are met”, its President, Mario Draghi, said after the meeting of the governing Council of the institution, in Nicosia on Wednesday 5 March.
In order to do so, the monitoring mission of the 'institutions' (Commission, ECB and IMF) must be concluded. At the moment, Draghi said, the ECB cannot buy Greek bonds, but the Frankfurt-based institution is prepared to re-establish the derogation granted to the Greek banks (allowing them to provide the Greek debt as collateral for their financing) once the monitoring mission is successfully completed. He went on to explain that the ECB had decided to raise by €500 million the upper limit on emergency liquidity (ELA) for the Greek banks which are, in his view, “solvent”.
The director general of the EFSF, Klaus Regling, told Handelsblatt that Greek risks deficit this year due to low tax revenue and expensive reforms (such as increasing the minimum wage). “The primary surplus that was seen as certain is melting away”, he said. A member of the council of administration of the IMF, Paulo Batista, however, believes that this budgetary surplus should be reduced substantially.
On Wednesday, the Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, denied rumours of defaults in the near future or over a third bailout plan. He said that Greece had an alternative to European assistance to meet its financial obligations in March, without specifying what. According to Bloomberg, Greece must refinance or reimburse €6.5 billion in debt and interests in three weeks' time, including treasury bonds. (Elodie Lamer with Mathieu Bion)