BERLIN (MNI) – ECB Governing Council member Axel Weber said
Wednesday that Greece will already regain access to capital markets in
the course of the three-year aid program by the Eurozone and the IMF and
therefore not all of the E110 billion in loans offered will be needed.
“I expect that still in the course of the three-year program Greece
will acquire access to capital markets again and then in the end through
the co-financing of markets, the means offered by [Eurozone] governments
will not be fully used up,” Weber said at a hearing of the German
parliament on the aid bill for Greece.
Weber said Greece was a singular case in Europe. “Greece’s
fundamental data are not comparable at all to those of many other
countries that are named in this context,” the central banker reckoned.
“These countries have positive growth this year and next, while Greece
will have a recession.”
Weber said he does not expect that other EU countries will need
financial aid. If Greece will strictly apply its budget consolidation
program it will also be able to overcome its problems, he reckoned.
Commenting to the domestic situation, the Bundesbank President
predicted that the German deficit will rise to just under 5% of GDP this
year “and will then only gradually recede.” While there is a need for
budget consolidation, Weber noted that “it is important now not to
withdraw the economic stimulus too soon.”
–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@marketnews.com
[TOPICS: M$X$$$,M$G$$$,M$$EC$,MT$$$$,MGX$$$,MFX$$$,M$$CR$,MFGBU$]
