Brussels, 08/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday morning, Greece submitted its official request for a third financial bailout plan, this time to the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). The President of the Board of Governors of the ESM also announced that the Commission, in conjunction with the ECB, had been asked to assess Greece's financing requirements, the risks to the financial stability of the eurozone and, this time with the IMF, the viability of the Greek debt.
Greece is requesting aid over three years, which will allow it to service its debt and safeguard the stability of the Greek financial system. In a letter at the end of June making its first request for a third aid plan, Greece asked for a two-year plan and estimated its needs at €29.1 billion, for servicing its debt alone. The IMF, however, recently put Greece's needs between October of this year and December 2018 at €52 billion. As the Financial Times recently reported, this estimate was based on the fact that Greece would have its needs covered until October with the €16.3 billion in support from the eurozone, which disappeared with the expiry of the second bailout plan. The IMF plan runs until the first quarter of 2016. There should still be the tranche of €3.5 billion from 2014, €8.6 billion earmarked for 2015 and €3.1 billion in 2016. However, the IMF cannot release any more money until Greece pays off its arrears.
As a token of its good intentions, the Greek government has pledged to implement the measures related to tax reforms and the pensions-related from next week. In its previous request, Greece had asked to put off pensions reform until October. The letter also states that the opportunity to explore potential measures to ensure that the Greek debt held by the institutional sector is viable over the longer term would be welcome. Greece also reiterates its commitment to remaining a member of the eurozone and sticking to its rules.
The European Commission has reiterated that the deadline to send in detailed proposals of reforms is midnight on Thursday. An assessment of these measures by the institutions should be able to start on Friday morning. The Commission declined to go into details on the 'Grexit plan' referred to the day before by its President, Jean-Claude Juncker. That same morning, in interview with the BBC, the Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Pierre Moscovici, repeated that where there was a will, there was a way to reach a compromise. “And I see that there is the will”, he said. In an interview with Bloomberg on the same day, he said that the EU would need to have humanitarian aid “whatever happens”. (Elodie Lamer)