Eurozone finance ministers warned on Thursday that a “window of opportunity” was closing on bridging a split over Greece’s bailout program, even as they failed to heal a row with the IMF over debt relief.
The IMF and the 19-nation single currency area are battling over how much debt relief Greece needs, and over economic targets required of Athens that the IMF says are not realistic.
“The window of opportunity is still open, but will soon shut because there are elections coming,” French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said after unsuccessful talks on Greece with his eurozone counterparts.
In addition, by the summer “Greece faces important debt repayments, so we have to find a solution before then,” Sapin said, with bailout cash blocked until a solution is found.
Months of bickering have delayed progress of Greece’s 86 billion euro (US$92.4 billion) bailout program agreed in 2015 and officials are increasingly worried that elections this year in the Netherlands, France and Germany could further poison any progress.
Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem insisted that the IMF remained committed to the Greek bailout program, but that its demands were indeed strict.
“The IMF has been very clear and consistent on its position. They want the reform package to be credible, they want the fiscal trajectory to be feasible and economically viable and they want the debt to be sustainable,” said Dijsselbloem, who is also the Dutch finance minister.
Germany, Greece’s biggest creditor, says that Athens is up to the task of meeting the targets without further debt relief and has called on the Greek government to deliver on reforms.
“It’s up to the Greeks to solve the problem,” said German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, the Eurogroup’s most influential member.
At heart of the problem is a demand by the eurozone that Greece deliver a primary balance, or surplus on public spending before debt repayments, of 3.5 percent of GDP.
The target is very high — and most countries do not even come close — but Germany and other eurozone hardliners are insistent that Greece reach it for several years after its current program concludes next year.
The IMF believes that hitting the long-term target will require debt relief and has also demanded extra commitments by Athens in case it falls short.
Greek Finance Mister Euclid Tsakalotos slammed these new demands as undemocratic.
“It is not correct to ask a country in a program to legislate, two or three years beforehand, what it will do in 2018,” Tsakalotos said.
Already huge, Greece’s debt hit 311 billion euros last year, or around 180 percent of output, according to the latest EU data.
JITTERS: Nexperia has a 20 percent market share for chips powering simpler features such as window controls, and changing supply chains could take years European carmakers are looking into ways to scratch components made with parts from China, spooked by deepening geopolitical spats playing out through chipmaker Nexperia BV and Beijing’s export controls on rare earths. To protect operations from trade ructions, several automakers are pushing major suppliers to find permanent alternatives to Chinese semiconductors, people familiar with the matter said. The industry is considering broader changes to its supply chain to adapt to shifting geopolitics, Europe’s main suppliers lobby CLEPA head Matthias Zink said. “We had some indications already — questions like: ‘How can you supply me without this dependency on China?’” Zink, who also
At least US$50 million for the freedom of an Emirati sheikh: That is the king’s ransom paid two weeks ago to militants linked to al-Qaeda who are pushing to topple the Malian government and impose Islamic law. Alongside a crippling fuel blockade, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) has made kidnapping wealthy foreigners for a ransom a pillar of its strategy of “economic jihad.” Its goal: Oust the junta, which has struggled to contain Mali’s decade-long insurgency since taking power following back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, by scaring away investors and paralyzing the west African country’s economy.
BUST FEARS: While a KMT legislator asked if an AI bubble could affect Taiwan, the DGBAS minister said the sector appears on track to continue growing The local property market has cooled down moderately following a series of credit control measures designed to contain speculation, the central bank said yesterday, while remaining tight-lipped about potential rule relaxations. Lawmakers in a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee voiced concerns to central bank officials that the credit control measures have adversely affected the government’s tax income and small and medium-sized property developers, with limited positive effects. Housing prices have been climbing since 2016, even when the central bank imposed its first set of control measures in 2020, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) said. “Since the second half of
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) received about NT$147 billion (US$4.71 billion) in subsidies from the US, Japanese, German and Chinese governments over the past two years for its global expansion. Financial data compiled by the world’s largest contract chipmaker showed the company secured NT$4.77 billion in subsidies from the governments in the third quarter, bringing the total for the first three quarters of the year to about NT$71.9 billion. Along with the NT$75.16 billion in financial aid TSMC received last year, the chipmaker obtained NT$147 billion in subsidies in almost two years, the data showed. The subsidies received by its subsidiaries —
RSS