Noyer Rules Out Greek Debt Restructuring, Says Austerity Is Only Solution
By Mark Deen - May 24, 2011 10:00 AM GMT+0200 Tue May 24 08:00:00 GMT 2011
European Central Bank Governing Council member
Christian Noyer ruled out a restructuring of Greece’s debt, calling it a “horror story” that the central bank cannot accept.
“There’s no solution possible” for Greece other than to follow its austerity program, Noyer told reporters in Paris today. “Restructuring is not a solution, it’s a horror story,” and if the country fails to meet the terms of its bailout, Greek government debt will be “ineligible as collateral” at the ECB.
The remarks put Bank of France Governor Noyer in line with ECB Executive Council member
Juergen Stark and Lorenzo Bini Smaghi as well as Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann. All of them said last week that the Frankfurt-based ECB may stop accepting Greek sovereign debt as collateral if euro area governments proceed with a plan to extend
Greece’s debt repayment schedule.
The ECB last year suspended the minimum credit-rating threshold for Greek bonds after the country’s banks were shut out of credit markets for funding. Banks can borrow as much money as they need for up to three months against collateral.
The ECB “accepted temporarily to reduce our minimum level of collateral to BBB,” Noyer said. “If the program is no longer respected, if a country is found off track, immediately our assumption of BBB disappears. If it goes out of the EU program, the collateral is ineligible.”
Insuring Debt
The cost of insuring Greek debt against default rose to a record yesterday and the yield on its 10-year bonds increased to a euro-era high as Prime Minister
George Papandreou’s government met in
Athens to endorse a new package of spending cuts and state-asset sales. Greece is struggling to contain its deficit more than a year after European governments first offered it 110 billion euros ($155 billion) in financial support.
European finance ministers on May 16 floated the idea of talks with bondholders over extending Greece’s debt-repayment schedule, saying the bailout has failed to restore the country’s financial health. On May 20,
Fitch Ratings cut Greece’s credit rating to B+ from BB+, saying that extending its debt maturities would “trigger a credit event and default rating.”
Moody’s Investor Service said today that repayment extensions or voluntary swaps -- what European officials term “soft restructuring” -- would constitute a default and shut Greece out of capital markets for a “sustained period.”
Banking Impact
In the case of a default, “the Greek banking sector would require recapitalizing to offset banks’ losses on Greek government bonds, and continued liquidity support from the
European Central Bank, at least for as long as the sovereign’s own access to the capital markets remained impaired,” according to the note, which sought to assess the impact of a default.
Noyer said any restructuring of Greece’s debt would cost European taxpayers more as Greek banks would become insolvent, requiring government support that would eventually have to come from other countries. Among other losers in a restructuring would be Greek pension funds, the ECB and European governments who have already lent to Greece, he said.
“No one will be able to finance the Greek state for coming years,” Noyer said. “This is the horror scenario. That’s why we’re against a restructuring.”
ECB policy makers have called on governments to toughen austerity measures and step up efforts to restore investor confidence in the 17-member currency union. The central bank has provided banks with unlimited liquidity over three months and also purchased
government bonds to fight the debt crisis.
Weidmann said on May 20 that a Greek restructuring wouldn’t improve the sustainability of the country’s debt and “the risks for contagion to other countries would significantly rise.” He spoke two days after Stark said that such a plan would undermine the collateral Greek banks use to gain ECB loans and Bini Smaghi said restructuring would “jeopardize all of
Europe.”
For Greece ‘to reduce the stock of debt, the only solution is ambitious privatization,” Noyer said. “It is necessary to have the equivalent of an internal devaluation. Cut production costs. There is no other solution.”
(Bloomberg)
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La BCE continua a rigettare qualsiasi proposta.