Greek crisis - it ain't over yet
Time and time again with the Greek debt crisis it has seemed that a solution has been found, only for the drama to continue.
So again with Greece's formal request to activate the EU-IMF rescue package last Friday. It turns out that many of the details are still being worked out. The markets sniff uncertainty and the borrowing costs for Greece have soared to a 12-year high.
What is now being laid bare are the tensions within the eurozone. On the streets of Athens I found very few people who support the bail-out package. There is widespread unease at the involvement of the IMF. There are fears that further austerity measures are on the way. It is easy to find people who would prefer to leave the euro rather than go through with this.
In Germany, too, several editorials and several senior politicians are questioning whether Greece should stay in the eurozone. The fear there is that Greece will need supporting for at least three years. It is also being asked what will happen if Greece cannot repay the loans or if other countries need aid. There is real concern in Germany that they are signing up to bankrolling a series of weak economies.
Chancellor Merkel is walking a tightrope. She knows the mood of the German people and she knows there are regional elections in a few weeks' time. Her strategy is to insist that Greece lays out a convincing plan as to how it will reduce its debt over a three-year period, perhaps longer. If that happens she will try and sell it to the German people.
"Germany will help, If requirements are fulfilled," she said. "This will still take a couple of days." She is looking for a sustainable programme. That, she said, was "the only chance to ensure the stability of the euro permanently". This would only work if Greece makes its own contribution. In other words Germany is setting out tough terms. It wants Greece to reduce its spending plans further.
That will prompt further strikes and protests in Greece in the days ahead..
Such is the level of opposition to helping Greece in Germany, that politicians are having to sell it as "in the national interest". German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said "what we are talking about is the destiny of the whole of Europe". The stakes are being raised.
Increasingly, this is being presented as not just a struggle to save the eurozone but the whole European project.
Michael Massourakis, the Chief Economist at the Alpha Bank in Greece said: "If the markets perceive that there is a European Union and a eurozone club that cannot take care of one of its members, obviously you may have a contagion effect being transferred affecting other countries."
In Portugal, the costs of servicing its debt are rising too.
The Foreign Minister of Portugal, Luis Amado, acknowledged today that it, too, was in a fight. He said they were doing what they could to avoid a similar situation to Greece. "We are not in such a critical situation as Greece. We didn't cheat," he said.
The financial markets want to see the fine print of the deal to rescue Greece. They also need to be convinced that this is not just sticking plaster and that Greece will not be in the same position next year. There is also the wider concern that the economies within the eurozone are just too different to be part of a monetary union.
This is not just the gravest crisis to face the single currency. Some very fundamental questions are being asked about the wider European project.
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