The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #157574   Message #3723778
Posted By: Jim Carroll
15-Jul-15 - 08:31 AM
Thread Name: BS: Greece in meltdown? What do you think?
Subject: RE: BS: Greece in meltdown? What do you think?
From this morning's Financial Times.
Jim Carroll

The International Monetary Fund has warned that it might not be able to participate in Greece's bailout if the programme does not include substantial debt relief, setting itself on a collision course with the country's eurozone creditors.
The move particularly raises the pressure on Germany, which has opposed any debt relief, just as it prepares to seek the approval of its parliament to negotiate the details of a new bailout hashed out in a summit at the weekend.
The Bundestag is expected to be summoned for an emergency session on Friday if the Greek parliament on Wednesday passes austerity measures demanded by creditors in return for up to €86bn in fresh financial support.
Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, is struggling to contain a rebellion within his leftwing, anti-austerity Syriza party ahead of the votes on the legislation, which is being backed by the opposition.
In the three-page memo, sent to EU authorities at the weekend and obtained by the Financial Times, the IMF said recent turmoil in the Greek economy would lead debt to peak at close to 200 per cent of economic output over the next two years. At the start of the eurozone crisis, Athens' debt stood at 127 per cent.
The memo, prepared for EU leaders ahead of the summit on Greece, argues that only through large-scale debt relief — something eurozone officials have fiercely resisted — could Greece see its debt fall to levels where it would be able to return to the financial markets.
"Greece's debt can now only be made sustainable through debt relief measures that go far beyond what Europe has been willing to consider so far," the memo reads.
That view was reinforced by the IMF on Tuesday when it said it would not be able to disburse €16.4bn of its own funds that European officials are counting on unless an agreement on debt relief was concluded.