In an interview to the Wall Street Journal, Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos warned that Germany and the other lenders could miss a unique chance of ending the uncertainty in Greece’s struggling economy they refused to agree on a debt restructuring. From the Wall Street Journal:
“Greece’s finance minister warned Germany and other creditors to agree on a debt restructuring in coming weeks, or miss the best chance to bring his struggling country’s seven-year crisis to an end.
Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos’s comments, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, came a day after U.S. President Barack Obama visited Athens, where he backed calls for Greek debt relief. Mr. Obama continued his European trip in Berlin on Thursday.
German leaders including finance chief Wolfgang Schäuble have said Greece’s debt can be addressed at a later date. Mr. Tsakalotos, however, warned that procrastination could undermine the country’s hopes of recovery in 2017, and that the coming weeks offer an important opportunity for the eurozone to show it can fix, rather than avoid, its problems.
“If we kick the can down the road and say ‘we will decide in two years’” about how to make Greece’s debt sustainable, then investors will also postpone decisions about investing in Greece, said Mr. Tsakalotos, a leading figure in Greece’s ruling left-wing Syriza party.
Amid rising political populism in Europe, the eurozone will only survive if it persuades voters it can solve its long-festering challenges, Mr. Tsakalotos said. “If it just postpones political decisions…then people will say it’s not working.”
Greece is approaching crucial weeks in negotiations with its creditors, the German-led eurozone and the International Monetary Fund. Athens is trying to show lenders that it is carrying out all of its agreed economic overhauls, including labor-market reforms and privatizations, and now deserves a restructuring of its mountain of bailout loans that would allow it to run smaller budget surpluses in the future.
Making Greece’s debt sustainable would also facilitate the country’s inclusion in the European Central Bank’s bond-buying program, the ECB has indicated—a step that Mr. Tsakalotos believes could happen by March 2017 and help to unlock a long-awaited economic recovery.”
Source: WSJ.com
Read full interview here.
Authors: NEKTARIA STAMOULI MARCUS WALKER
