CGTN America
Greek leaders have started yet another week negotiating their finances with a missed deadline. The coalition was supposed to have submitted by Monday a list of reforms in exchange for an extended credit line. European creditors are now expected to receive them on Tuesday. CCTV America’s Owen Fairclough reported this story from Washington, D.C.
Government honeymoon ends abruptly over Greece bailout extension
Greek leaders have started yet another week negotiating their finances with a missed deadline. The coalition was supposed to have submitted by Monday a list of reforms in exchange for an extended credit line. European creditors are now expected to receive them on Tuesday. CCTV America's Owen Fairclough reported this story from Washington, D.C.There’s no rest for the new Greek government on a public holiday in Greece. The radical left-wing coalition is working overtime to secure a four-month extension.
It’s aimed at preventing Greece going bankrupt by the end of this month. Some think it’s a Pyrrhic victory for a radical left-wing government that appears to have U-turned on the promise to exit a bailout that imposed austerity on a government that spent a lot more than it collected in taxes.
Now it’s being told to draw up a list of reforms aimed at making the economy more competitive, reining in tax cheats and bringing down an unsustainable debt pile of more than 300 billion dollars.
And those changes – however difficult – are crucial for lenders like the International Monetary Fund. If Greece is to receive billions more dollars of funding, the IMF will demand Greece impose the kinds of reforms that Athens wanted to either water down or abandon altogether.
Germany, the biggest contributor of European bailout funds, is also determined to keep Greece on track.
“Some of the remarks made by Prime Minister Tsipras saying that austerity measures are now behind them set off alarm bells for me,” Gerda Hasselfeldt, a parliamentary leader of the Christian Social Union party said.
Yet many of the numbers are going the wrong way. Depositors are pulling more and more money out of Greece – an estimated 3.4 billion dollars last week – driving fears the country could soon be insolvent.
There is one bright spot: The Greek government borrowing costs have dropped a little as financial markets await the next drumroll in this latest European financial drama.
Michael Pento of Pento Portfolio Strategies discusses Greece
CCTV America interviewed Michael Pento of Pento Portfolio Strategies about the negotiations in Greece.
