Eurozone crisis
EU must restructure Greek debt now - study
By Sarah Collins | Wednesday 09 February 2011
Greece is now insolvent and its debts should be immediately restructured, a study has claimed. The report, by economists at financial think tank Bruegel, estimates that holders of Greek sovereign debt must accept a 30% haircut under a plan to make the country solvent within 20 years. Any further delays will mean larger haircuts in future or eventual restructuring of the €80 billion in loans pledged by eurozone countries to Greece as part of a €110 billion joint bailout with the International Monetary Fund last May, it warns.
“Greece has become insolvent and [...] further lending without a significant enough debt reduction is not a viable strategy,” it says. “As official creditors - EU partners and the IMF - are gradually substituting private creditors to Greece, postponing the restructuring would imply, to keep the debt ratio at sustainable levels, either a restructuring of official loans, or a significantly higher eventual haircut on private claims,” the study says.
The EU’s leaders agreed last October to impose haircuts on private holders of new sovereign debt issued after 2013, only where the country concerned is insolvent. However, they have ruled out forcing holders of existing debt to share the burden out of fear that the move would cause a run on other eurozone bonds.
But Bruegel says that failing a plan for immediate restructuring, Greece would be forced to maintain an impossibly high budget surplus - between 8.4% and 14.5% of GDP - from 2015 in order to bring its mountain of debt to below EU limits within 20 years.
Government debt is set to rise to 150% of annual output, or GDP, this year - around €325 billion - the highest by far in the 27-member bloc and over twice the EU’s limit. Bruegel estimates that as only €52 billion of that debt is held by eurozone banks, any spillover effects from restructuring would be “manageable”.
“Some [banks] would no doubt be in need for recapitalisation but [...] the impact on the public finances of the partner euro area countries would remain limited,” the study says. “Therefore, the fear of domino effect is understandable, but excessive.” The report recommends that the EU’s leaders, meeting for their next summit at the end of March, should hand the €440 billion European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) - currently tapped only once for Ireland - the power to negotiate voluntary debt exchanges with bondholders and buy back bonds purchased by the European Central Bank since last May under its emergency programme, currently valued at €76.5 billion (mostly consisting of Greek, Irish and Portuguese bonds).
Under the deal, interest rates on Greek and Irish loans should be dropped to 3.5% - from their current levels of 5.2% and 5.8% on average - and loan maturity extended to 30 years, Bruegel says, which would allow Ireland to bring its debt back below the EU’s 60% of GDP limit by 2034.
The report is available at
www.europolitics.info > Search = 287912
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Pensavo che il link rimandasse allo studio del pensatoio di Bruegel, invece niente.
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