Crunch Time Nears For Greece And Eurozone

Written By Unknown on Senin, 09 Februari 2015 | 23.34

It is approaching crunch time for the Greek government and the eurozone.

The reiteration on Sunday night by Alexis Tsipras, the new Greek Prime Minister, in his inaugural speech to parliament that his Syriza party will not seek an extension to Greece's bailout package has put him on a collision course with the "Troika" of the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Mr Tsipras has said he wants Greece to be provided with a "bridging loan" once the current bailout package expires at the end of the month.

Without such a loan, or an extension to the current package, the Greek government looks likely to run out of money some time next month.

Yet Mr Tsipras himself has ruled out an extension to the existing bailout and Jeroen Dijsselbloem, head of the Eurogroup - the group of eurozone finance ministers - has ruled out a bridging loan, which explains why the UK government has drawn up contingency plans for a Greek exit from the eurozone.

A number of outcomes are now possible.

The first is that Greece backs down and that its current bailout is extended. This would be the least problematic course but would be deeply humiliating for the new Greek government.

The second is that the Greeks are granted the bridging loan they have requested.

This would be extremely difficult for Germany and other leading eurozone members to swallow because it would smack of caving in to Greek demands. It could lead to big votes for anti-austerity parties like Syriza elsewhere across the eurozone.

A third alternative is that Greece finds some money from somewhere else.

Russia has indicated that it is not averse to supporting Greece and President Putin would revel in another opportunity to meddle in the EU's affairs in view of European sanctions against Moscow following its conduct in Ukraine.

The problem here is that, following those sanctions, Russia's economy has collapsed into recession and, with the slump in oil and gas prices, its export earnings have fallen too.

It is scarcely in a position to provide Greece with much financial support.

That leaves a fourth alternative of Greece reneging on its debts, leaving the eurozone and reintroducing the drachma.

This was once seen as a nightmare scenario but is increasingly seen, especially within Germany, as a containable risk.

Yes, the Troika would lose the €240bn (£179bn) that it has shovelled into Greece to keep it afloat thus far, but most of those losses would reside with the IMF and the ECB itself rather than with individual banks.

Were the latter still major holders of Greek sovereign debt, it would be a different story, but there is less risk of contagion spreading across the rest of the eurozone now from a "Grexit".

Grexit would mean unimaginable pain for ordinary Greeks since the huge devaluation entailed by restoring the drachma would mean high inflation and, after having escaped from it, a return to recession.

Mr Tsipras knows this - and so a compromise of extending the existing bailout, perhaps using a form of words to disguise any kind of backing down on his part, is probably the way to bet.


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