After days of intense negotiations during which its membership in the eurozone seemed to hang by a thread, Greece finally reached an agreement today on the measures that will accompany the new loan package from its European partners and the International Monetary Fund.
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM—The specter of Greek default haunted Monday’s informal European Union summit. Despite valiant efforts by EU leaders to focus on promoting growth and jobs, an issue they finally seem to have woken up to, and on finalizing the new fiscal compact agreed on last December, Greece’s debt odyssey hovered menacingly over the proceedings. And, as if the Greek situation were not enough, nerves were further frayed by the evolving Portuguese disaster. As talks were under way in Brussels, ten-year Portuguese bond spreads were reaching euro-era highs of more than 15 percent amid growing fears that the Iberian country would follow in Greece’s footsteps and restructure its debt.
Greece is once again the focal point of efforts to stem the bleeding of investor confidence and save the eurozone. Intense negotiations continue on the precise terms of the restructuring of privately held debt in the struggling Mediterranean country. Agreement is a necessary condition for the approval of a second bailout package from Greece’s eurozone partners and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which, at 130 billion euros or more, will exceed the first one.
Friday was another very bad day for Europe’s crisis managers. Within the space of a few hours, it was revealed that talks between Greece and its international creditors had reached a dead end and were being put on hold and that Standard & Poor’s had downgraded nine eurozone countries, including France and Austria, which formerly held AAA ratings. Both developments are alarming, but the Greek situation is the more immediately pressing.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. AP Photo/Tamas Kovacs
Tamas Fellegi, Hungary’s chief negotiator with the International Monetary Fund, has a tough task this week. Fellegi, a minister without portfolio in Viktor Orban’s right-wing government, is in Washington for preliminary talks with the IMF, in the hopes of setting the foundations for a new package of financial support that will prevent the country’s descent into the Hades of default. This new package, which Orban had previously stated would not be needed, was made necessary in part because of the dramatic deterioration in the economic outlook of the whole of Europe as a result of the eurozone debt crisis and the inept way it has been handled.
