BERLIN (MNI) – German Economics Minister Rainer Bruederle said
Wednesday he does not expect that Portugal or Spain will need to follow
the example of Greece and Ireland and seek financial aid from their
Eurozone peers.
“I don’t believe” this will happen, Bruederle told reporters on the
sidelines of a book presentation on the euro crisis. “I don’t see that
because [Portugal and Spain] are still capable of acting,” he explained.
The decisions by EU finance ministers this weekend on fiscal aid
for Ireland and a future permanent EU crisis mechanism show that “we are
determined to get things back to order again,” Bruederle said.
He stressed, though, that Eurozone finance ministers have not yet
made a formal decision to extend maturities on Greek repayments of
EMU-IMF loans. “We’re looking into extending them but it’s wrong to say,
it will be lengthened to seven years; that’s not correct…we’re
examining that,” Bruederle said.
Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said Monday that
Greece would now have until 2024 to repay those loans. The current loan
terms, which call for a repayment period of two years plus a grace
period of three years — starting from the end of the Greece rescue
facility in 2013 — will be changed to a repayment period of seven years
and a grace period of four, which totals eleven years beyond 2013,
Papaconstantinou explained.
Bruederle praised Sunday’s agreement on a future European Stability
Mechanism (ESM) which allows for debt restructuring affecting private
creditors should a sovereign Eurozone state be declared insolvent.
Asked by reporters if he really believed that a Eurozone state
could ever go insolvent, the minister stressed: “It can go insolvent.”
Bruederle said he trusts that the efforts by the EU and the
Eurogroup will eventually get the sovereign debt crisis under control
again.
–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@marketnews.com
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