December 2, 2010
Loan extensions may help Greek interest rates on debt
Wall Street Journal article by Costas Paris and Alkman Granitsason the availability of loan extensions and the effect it should bring on the debt market Greece is using for rolling over debt while it works its way through the extensive bailout program put together by the IMF/eurozone.
"The Greek government was surprised by a decision from its European partners to consider extending the repayment period for an international loan, but the move should help lower borrowing costs for the debt-laden country, a senior government official said Tuesday.
"This gives us a lot of breathing space and [interest rate yields] should now come down," the official said. "But it all depends on how strictly we follow the terms of the [loan] memorandum and we plan to follow it to the letter."
In May, Greece narrowly avoided default with the help of a EUR110 billion loan by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, but which saw a tight repayment period of just five years for Greece to pay back what it had borrowed.
However, over the weekend European finance ministers said they would consider extending that repayment period, in line with a similar bailout for Ireland, with a final repayment due in 2024.
That extension should go some way to easing market jitters over Greece's ability to service a staggering EUR70 billion a year in loan repayments in 2014 and 2015, the official said."
For a less happier view of this situation, Costas Iordanidis at Kathimerini wrote:
"The prospect of an extension to the repayment period for the loans granted to Greece by its foreign lenders, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, in a bid to avoid bankruptcy has created a mood of relief among pundits and government officials.
This development, of course, has underscored once again that the handling of the issue by Prime Minister George Papandreou’s administration has been next to worthless. Furthermore, it is not yet known what the additional cost of the extension will be.
The Socialist government has clung to outdated public relations stratagems and, at the same time, depended on politically inexperienced ministers who had little practical knowledge of economic affairs. The result was an agreement to a package of measures that were bound to lead to recession and which, above all, damage the interests of the middle class.
Any extension to the loan repayment period, which indeed is a source of relief under the current circumstances, will only result in an extension of fiscal austerity and recession.
The situation remains critical and things are expected to deteriorate further in the near future as social tension deepens and the government’s shortcomings become more and more evident.
So there is one thing that must become clear: Greece belongs to the European system.
There is no “American policy” on economic issues, so to say, nor is there a “Chinese policy.” There is only the European road, at least for the time being, difficult and painful as this road may be."
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