BERLIN (MNI) – The European Central Bank cannot extend the
maturities or the lower interest rate on the Greek sovereign debt it is
holding, ECB Executive Board member Joerg Asmussen said in a newspaper
interview published Sunday.
“It is a clear no,” Asmussen told German weekly Bild am Sonntag
(BamS). Both would be a direct financing of the Greek state by the ECB,
which is forbidden under European rules, he said.
Giving Greece more time to meet its reform and budget consolidation
goals “automatically means that Greece needs more financial assistance
from abroad,” the Executive Board member noted. This extra funding would
need to come from the other Eurozone states, he said.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble reaffirmed Sunday in an
interview with German ZDF public television that Greece will only get
the next tranche of financial assistance, worth E31.5 billion, if it
meets the commitments under the reform and budget consolidation package
agreed with the EU and the IMF.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet Greek Prime Minister
Antonis Samaras next Tuesday in Athens. Samaras warned in an interview
with German business daily Handelsblatt on Friday that Greece would run
out of money by the end of next month if it did not receive the next aid
tranche from its European creditors.
Asmussen told BamS that the ECB will continue to guarantee the
stability of the common currency. “Nobody needs to be worried about
this,” he said. The central bank expects inflation in the Eurozone to
decline to below 2% next year, he added.
–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@mni-news.com
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