Greece will seek to conclude its financial arrangements with the International Monetary Fund earlier than expected, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said Tuesday.
Speaking during a joint press conference with Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, Samaras also said that Greece will be able to cover its 2015 financial needs on its own and that after the EU-wide stress tests results and the conclusion of the fifth assessment review by the country’s international creditors, he is expecting a debt relief agreement.
“I don’t want to call it a divorce (with the IMF). We have a cooperation. It was never easy. On the contrary. But it has changed the image of our economy. This cooperation will be concluded before scheduled. If we do that, it will be a success and not a divorce,” Samaras said, responding to speculation that Greece will seek an early exit from its IMF loans.
Greece is scheduled to receive the last EU loan tranche of E1.8 billion after the ongoing fifth assessment review and will from then rely only on the E15.1 billion of IMF funding.
High ranking EU sources told MNI Monday that Samaras is personally lobbying that the European Stability Mechanism, ESM, should buy-out Greece’s IMF loans so that the handling of the country’s adjustment programme can be monitored by the Commission and the European Central Bank.
Samaras went on to reiterate that Greece does not need a third bail-out plan.
via MNI News
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Alfonso Esparza
trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
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