Greek debt could go above 140 percent of GDP in 2020, says ECB

Greece’s second international bailout in March was supposed to make its debt sustainable by 2020, falling to 116.5 percent of economic output, but two elections and months of delays in agreed polices have thrown targets off course.
“Under unchanged policies, the debt in 2020 will still be somewhat higher than 140 percent of GDP according to ECB estimates,” said Asmussen, a member of the ECB executive board, in an advance copy of an interview to be published on Saturday.
With total Greek debt estimated at 175 percent of gross domestic product and forecast to rise to nearly 190 percent next year, euro zone finance ministers will meet on Monday to try to determine just how off-track Greece is and how to respond.
Disagreement over the state of Greece’s future finances threatens to further delay the next 31.5 billion euro-tranche of Greece’s second bailout, pushing it close to bankruptcy.
First estimates by inspectors from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund show the debt would be at least 130 percent of GDP in 2020. The IMF differs from the Commission, euro zone officials have told Reuters, with the Commission more optimistic.
Asmussen told De Tijd that finance ministers had to look at a range of options to help Greece, “including voluntary debt buy-back’s, lowering the interest rate on outstanding loans and asking for a higher Greek primary surplus.”
A radical strategy would be for euro zone countries, which have made loans totaling 127 billion euros to Greece under the two bailout programs, to write off some of that.
But Asmussen said that was unlikely.
“The appetite for a second restructuring is extremely low among member states,” he said, referring to the private sector write down of Greek debt earlier this year.
He said it was still better to keep Greece within the euro zone and that the country may get two more years of financing, although there was still no agreement on how to do this.
“In the next few days, we need an agreement on further measures in Greece and additional aid from the other euro area countries to ensure debt sustainability,” he said.