Excluding money owed by the ruling New Democracy, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde reviewed a plan for Greek banks to shed 30 billion euros ($33.4 billion) in bad loans.
New Democracy and its former coalition partner, the now-defunct PASOK Socialists, owed banks 250 million euros ($278.32 million) in loans they hadn’t been fully repaying and with the bank officers who approved them without sufficient collateral given immunity from prosecution.
In April, prosecutors recommended charges be brought against the former treasurers of New Democracy and PASOK as well as scores of current and retired bank executives over bad loans given the parties but nothing has reported to have happened since.
Mitsotakis and Lagarde, who, as the former International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief in Washington, oversaw bailout funds the agency lent Greece, also discussed removing ECB restrictions that Greek banks have on their exposure to Greek bonds.
Government sources who weren’t identified told Kathimerini that Lagarde lauded government reforms and talked about the so-called Hercules plan to cut non-performing loans (NPLs) that would let banks get rid of bad debt by wrapping them into asset-backed securities and as they’ve sold many off to vulture collectors hounding people who can’t repay loans, credit cards and mortgages because of a decade of harsh austerity measures, including those imposed by a former New Democracy-PASOK coalition government.
Read more at thenationalherald.com
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