PARIS: The European Central Bank will participate in a sharp writedown of Greece's debt currently under negotiation in Athens, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
The ECB, one of Greece's biggest creditors, has "agreed to exchange the government bonds it purchased in the secondary market last year at a price below face value, provided the debt-restructuring talks have a successful outcome," the business daily said.
According to the newspaper, the ECB would give up its interest payments, or coupons, on Greek debt bought in a controversial bond buying programme launched in the early days of the eurozone debt crisis.
The ECB bought the bonds beginning in May 2010 in an effort to push down borrowing prices for Athens. The effort failed and Greece has in effect been locked out of the bond markets ever since.
The programme was hotly and publicly disputed by the Germany's Bundesbank who saw it as a backdoor way of financing eurozone states.
Greece's creditors are being asked to write off about half of the 200 billion euros' ($260 billion) worth of government debt they hold to cut the country's total debt burden down to a sustainable level of 120 per cent of GDP in 2020 from 160 per cent at present.
indiatimes.com
The ECB, one of Greece's biggest creditors, has "agreed to exchange the government bonds it purchased in the secondary market last year at a price below face value, provided the debt-restructuring talks have a successful outcome," the business daily said.
According to the newspaper, the ECB would give up its interest payments, or coupons, on Greek debt bought in a controversial bond buying programme launched in the early days of the eurozone debt crisis.
The ECB bought the bonds beginning in May 2010 in an effort to push down borrowing prices for Athens. The effort failed and Greece has in effect been locked out of the bond markets ever since.
The programme was hotly and publicly disputed by the Germany's Bundesbank who saw it as a backdoor way of financing eurozone states.
Greece's creditors are being asked to write off about half of the 200 billion euros' ($260 billion) worth of government debt they hold to cut the country's total debt burden down to a sustainable level of 120 per cent of GDP in 2020 from 160 per cent at present.
indiatimes.com
No comments:
Post a Comment