YEREVAN, July 14. /ARKA/. Options to tide Greece past the looming redemption of its bonds held by the European Central Bank include delaying the payment and having the cash-strapped country sell bills, two European Union officials said, Bloomberg agency reports.
Two Greek bonds on the ECB’s books totaling 3.1 billion euros ($3.8 billion) mature on Aug. 20, Bloomberg data show. The central bank insists on being repaid in full, unlike the investors who were forced to take losses in this year’s Greek debt restructuring.
Euro-area finance ministers will on July 20 consider ways to save Greece from a market-quaking non-payment without easing the pressure on Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s new government to keep overhauling the economy, said the officials, who asked not to be named because the talks are private.
European governments are determined to avoid a reckoning with Greece, which triggered the debt crisis almost three years ago, while separate negotiations take place over aid for Spain’s banks. A downgrade yesterday by Moody’s Investors Service of Italy’s credit rating added to the fiscal concerns plaguing the 17- nation euro area.
Greece is counting on an “intermediate solution” to keep it solvent through August, Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said in Brussels on July 10 after attending his first meeting of European finance chiefs. -0-
