Greece not due to return to drachma or restructure debt: minister
- Source: Xinhua
- [08:31 June 10 2010]
- Comments
Greece will not return to drachma and will not restructure its national debt this weekend, Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said on Wednesday, strongly denying rumors that the country is on the brink of default or exit from the Eurozone.
"These scenarios of an imminent catastrophe should stop. They are absurd," said Papaconstantinou, noting that such rumors are obviously part of speculative games that targeted Greece earlier this year.
Greece faces a serious debt crisis since late 2009 and the government attributed it up to a point to an attack against the country and the European common currency by speculators.
With the activation of a financial safety net by the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) this spring, Greece avoided a bankruptcy, but doubts on the implementation of the terms of the deal and the whole plan to exit the crisis remain.
Mostly foreign media reproduced over the past few days reports that Greece has not escaped the danger and is due to default and exit the Eurozone during this summer or autumn.
The Greek government categorically denounced these scenarios.
"We are on the right track to recovery," said Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou on Tuesday and Papaconstantinou repeated on Wednesday during a briefing of Greek media.
Asked whether the sale of Greek state bonds to the European Central Bank amounts to a restructure of the Greek debt and delays in payments to foreign lenders, the Greek finance minister said that this is not true.
Papaconstantinou stressed that the agreement between Athens and EU and IMF is properly implemented, Greece is consistent to its pledges and the next installment of financial aid will be given to Athens in September.
Greece has already received 20 billion euros ($24.02 billion) out of a total 110 billion euros ($132.11 billion) secured over a three year period. And according to the timetable of the deal, Greece will get another 9 billion euros ($10. 809 billion) this September, if everything runs smoothly.
On June 14 a new group of EU-IMF auditors will arrive in Athens to follow closely the implementation of measures agreed to cut the country's budget deficit from the current 13.6 percent of GDP to less than three percent by 2014.
The Greek GDP will be revised again next year in collaboration of the restructured Greek National Statistics Agency with the Eurostat, Papaconstantinou underlined.
The figures released by the Greek agency on the budget deficit and other indexes created a storm in the past few months. Before the general elections in Greece last October, the previous government stated that the deficit stood at six percent of GDP. In late 2009 the new government announced that it was actually double, accusing officials of hiding the truth from Greek people and European partners.
Papaconstantinou said that he is optimistic on the implementation of the fiscal measures and the whole Stability and Growth Program to exit the crisis. By June this year, state revenues increased by eight percent on an annual basis, expenses declined by 10 percent and deficit dropped by 40 percent, he stressed.