Brussels, 01/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 1 December, the Board of Directors of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) decided to release €2.72 billion to Greece for the recapitalisation of Piraeus Bank, following the green light of the competition services of the European Commission to this recapitalisation (see EUROPE 11442).
This money has therefore been taken from the envelope of €10 billion set aside for bank recapitalisation. The fact that the Greek banks have lower capital requirements (€25 billion was initially forecast in the aid plan) is good news for the viability of public debt, said the Director General of the ESM, Klaus Regling (see EUROPE 11429).
On this point, the Deputy Governor of the Greek Central Bank, Ioannis Mourmouras, said that he felt that the basis of the discussion for a reduction of the Greek debt will be the net present value of the debt, whereas the eurozone leaders have been reiterating for several weeks that the basis for these difficult talks will be the annual servicing of the debt. “If we don't make the critical decision in, let's say, February 2016, and we push the critical decision back to next summer or even 2017, then all the results will be delayed”, the Greek finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, warned on Monday 30 November. (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)