PARIS (MNI) – A newspaper report earlier Monday saying that the
European Central Bank had agreed to broaden the eligibility of
collateral that Greek banks can use as guarantees against emergency
lending assistance (ELA) from the Greek central bank is not accurate, an
ECB spokesperson said Monday evening in a written statesment.
The report, which appeared in Germany’s Die Welt, “is not correct,”
the spokesperson said. “The set of eligible collateral for ELA in the
case of Greece has not been changed.”
The paper reported that Greek banks could use the additional cash
obtained with extra collateral to buy sovereign debt from the
government, allowing Athens to tide itself over until its official
creditors disburse a long-delayed bailout loan tranche of E31.5 billion.
The Greek government has said that without the money, it will run out of
cash at the end of this week.
–Paris newsroom, +331-42-71-55-40; bwolfson@mni-news.com
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