Greek debt
update
Despite three years of hard austerity policies, Greek
debt stays ... unmoved. Specifically, according to the official
Public Debt Report, published on Tuesday by the Finance Ministry, in
late March 2013, public debt soared to 309 billion euros. In March
2012, shortly after the first haircut (PSI), public debt was nearly
280.3 billion euros, while in March 2010, just before the Memorandum,
310.3 billion euros. Therefore, the result is “zero in the
quotient”.
That is, within 12 months, from March 2012 to March
2013, Greece's debt increased by 29 billion euros, despite its second
restructure (bond swap), held in December 2012, and resulted in
savings of about $ 20 billion .
Three years ago, on 31 March 2010, shortly before the
adaptation of Memorandum, the central government debt was 310.3
billion, according, always, to the official Public Debt Report
announced by the Ministry of Finance. So after three years of
efforts, Greece managed to reduce its debt in absolute numbers by
just 1 billion.
At the same time, the shrinking Greek GDP by 25%, due to
the austerity measures, is making public debt non-viable. Moreover,
the European Commission estimates that general government debt will
reach 175% of GDP in 2013 and 2014, falling to 160% of GDP in 2016.
It is estimated that the increased debt in the last 12
months, is primarily due to loans received by the country from the eurozone and IMF to meet the needs of recapitalization of Greek
banks, but also due to the obligations of public sector.
According to the European Commision report on the Greek
program, the total loans given to Greece by the EU-IMF from 2010
until now, reach 205.1 billion euros. Specifically, 73 billion euros
were given from the first program (52.9 billion from eurozone Member
States and 20.1 billion from the IMF), and 132.1 billion euros from
the second program, from 2012 onwards (127.3 from EFSF and 4.84 from
IMF).
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